A Demon's Deal
by Wand Control
Summary: Being an Auror wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Harry Potter was convinced the world was out to make the rest of his life dull; until a demon called Whistler gave him an offer that he just couldn't refuse.
1. Chapter One : Whistler

_Author Notes - This is a reboot of my Welcomed Chaos fic. My revisions will definitely require a new story posting. First thing is that this is no longer in the first person. This isn't my strong suit, but it's a perspective that's most common in writing and is something I need to get better at. Another thing is that I plan to go a lot slower and take my time. I tended to write a chapter in one sitting before. This first chapter is 6k words and covers the same period of time that my previous story only took 2.4k words for. Hopefully, it makes it feel a little less disjointed. I also decided to make Harry a little less crazy, and a little more in character. As I read through Welcomed Chaos four years after the fact, the main thing that stood out was that Harry was far crazier and unbalanced than I thought when I had first written it._

 _Secondly, I'm well aware that I'm not the best writer. You do not need to review my story to tell me this. The best way to get better is through practice, and this is what I'm doing. If you don't enjoy reading it, don't needlessly suffer through it. Put it down and read something else._

 _This won't be slash. I will see how everything goes, and test to see if I can even write romance to a satisfactory level. If I can, then expect something._

 _Lastly, this will also be an Angel crossover. They are in the same universes and dealing with the same problems, so expect Harry to juggle both. I thought about adding another original perspective in the Cleveland Hellmouth, but I doubt people will care as much about that._

Chapter One: Whistler

Boredom was merely for the boring was a concept that Harry had heard many times before. Mostly when he was trapped in his cupboard and too young to know that complaining to his relatives about how bored he was wouldn't do anything but keep him in there for even longer. Being trapped in that cupboard didn't seem so bad at the moment.

Because Harry Potter was bored and didn't really have anybody but himself to blame for it. At nineteen, Harry was a famous Auror. Unfortunately, his fame didn't have anything at all to do with being an Auror. It was only a year ago that Harry was able to overcome one of the vilest wizards of the last century. The self-proclaimed Lord had taken over Hogwarts and was inches away from a complete victory over the Britain Wizarding World when Harry, through a series of events that involved mostly luck, bravery, and the careful planning of his late Headmaster, was able to achieve what many before him had not.

At the time, Harry was relieved. Although relieved was an understatement in reality. It felt like the whole world which had been hoisted upon his shoulders was gone. He could now live his life without having to worry about this huge responsibility that had been thrust upon him before he could even talk. Harry frowned to himself as he thought about it.

He supposed he could have lived a quiet life. Sold his life story to an author and lived off of the large chunk of change. Married a witch, raised a family and did whatever a family man did with his time, but the whole idea wasn't all that tempting to Harry. His true purpose came known to him just weeks after Voldemort's defeat. He was in Diagon Alley about to visit George who was having a horrible time dealing with his brother's death. He was walking down the street, on his way to Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes when from out of nowhere, a bright green light came flying at him from the corner of his eyes. Harry dropped to the ground in a moment of pure reflex, and the curse smashed into the side of a shop to his left. Adrenaline started pumping for the first time in a month and Harry was able to knock the man out cold with a stunner after a few spell exchanges. He knew right then that raising a family wasn't going to be a priority of his because the idea of fighting more of these left over Death Eaters was a far more tempting offer. That's when he decided to apply for Auror training.

Harry expected that it would be a year or two before he could call himself an Auror. He remembered Tonks used to talk about all the training she had to go through before earning any sort of salary. Harry must have forgotten just how much the Wizarding World was willing to offer him because of his victory. Kingsley Shacklebolt, who now led the Department of Law Enforcement offered him an immediate promotion to Auror with on job training. Harry was surprised at first but quickly learned that Shacklebolt had no actual say in the matter, and was forced to extend the offer by his superiors. At first, Harry had no desire to take the same job that others had to earn through a year of hard work, but the Daily Prophet had started to report attacks on Muggle-borns and Muggles. The attacks were always followed by the same image of the Dark Mark in the sky. Many came to the conclusion that Death Eater survivors were regathering without their leader. The terrorists saw Harry's victory as a fluke, and without Dumbledore and many of the powerful Wizards and Witches that fell at the Hogwarts battle, they thought they could secure an easy victory. Especially because there were still people in the government that held their positions regardless of their Death Eater sympathies.

Knowing that the Ministry needed his help, Harry accepted the offer. Harry became an Auror and shortly afterward discovered that they had already arrested the few culprits that were causing the mayhem. It was a small group of five pure-blooded wizards that had run from the Hogwarts battle and had nowhere else to turn to. Harry figured that this was only a part of a larger organization. However, three weeks later no more attacks had occurred, and the case was marked as solved. What followed was a year of tedious work and Auror calls that turned out to be nothing more than petty crimes like scuffles in public streets and theft.

Currently, Harry sat at his desk. He had completed his on job training months ago and was now a full-time Auror. With that title came paperwork. Paperwork that caused Harry to spend more time every day at his desk than out in the field. Harry wasn't sure if this was because the Ministry wanted to protect their symbol of hope, or because there really just wasn't much crime to fight these days. He was going over the paperwork of a reported Death Eater attack that was actually two hot headed young adults that had decided to duel in the streets. As soon as Harry appeared to apprehend them, they put down their wands and apologized. The lack of a fight for eight months in a row put a continued damper on Harry's mood.

Harry started putting files away in order to leave for the day. He was the only one left in the office because it was May 2nd; the anniversary of Voldemort's defeat. Harry imagined it would soon be a national holiday, but this year it was just an excuse to leave work early in order to celebrate with alcohol and fireworks. Harry didn't quite feel in the mood to celebrate the many deaths of his friends and decided that he would just finish his day and go home to research and sleep. As Harry walked out of his office, he dwelt on his current social life.

Harry was currently single after he explained to Ginny that he just wasn't interested in starting a family that soon in his life, or perhaps ever. Harry imagined that he wouldn't make the best father, not with his tendency to run wand first into the closest fight without a care towards his own well-being. Harry supposed he could have tried to find a more casual relationship, but he didn't really have the time. When he wasn't working, he was spending time researching and experimenting with magic. Many Professors at Hogwarts used to lecture about how experimenting without a proper instructor could lead to many dangerous outcomes. Harry supposed those lectures must have stuck with him because the idea of trying to develop magical spells, potions, and combat techniques started to become more and more appealing once he realized how boring his job was. Of course, he wasn't stupid, nor did he really have a death wish. He was starting slow and learning all the theory behind subjects that he either ignored at school or just didn't care about enough to learn completely during his time there.

Hermione encouraged his higher learning when had he told her, but she still scolded him when some of his experiments turned out to be less than perfectly safe. She had her own plans with her application going through to a Muggle University. She spent the last year trying to catch up in all Muggle subjects that she had missed while attending Hogwarts for seven years. Harry wasn't sure how Muggles determined whether or not she was qualified to go off to a University, but she seemed confident in her application for next semester. Ron, who refused to study through most of their Hogwarts days actually decided to follow her on the same path; proving his love for her.

Harry had thought that Ron would join him in his own career, but Ron said that he just wasn't sure the job was safe enough for the large family he planned on starting. Harry didn't bother to ask if Hermione was aware of these family plans of his. If only Ron knew just how safe being an Auror really was, he might have actually followed Harry in becoming one.

As he finished organizing his files for the day, Harry left his desk and made his way through the Floo Network to his home, Grimmauld Place. He decided to reside there permanently because of its connection to Sirius. Harry didn't even think he owned it legally, but as no one else dared to challenge him on his residence, he remained a permanent squatter. Harry could have afforded a place of his own, but the Blacks had a decent library of experimental magic textbooks that still held his interest.

Harry walked into the Floo at the Ministry and threw down a handful of powder, "Grimmauld place." He called. The uncomfortable journey lasted only a moment before he stepped out of the fireplace and into his own house. With a wave of his wand, the leftover soot that covered his robes promptly vanished. He looked around with a frown. Something didn't feel right. Harry kept a firm grip on his wand and held it out in front of him as he scanned the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He quickly checked the wards and found them still intact and damage free. Willing to trust his instincts, Harry kept his wand at a ready position as he went into each room to check for anything out of the ordinary.

That's when he saw him. A man shorter than Harry was sitting at the dining room table. Both of his hands were palm down on the table in an obvious gesture of peace. The man face beamed at him from underneath a bowler hat.

"Good evening," he said with a smile, tipping his hat in greeting with his right hand before returning it to the table.

"How did you. . ." Harry exclaimed in surprise. He stared for a moment in surprise and confusion. His house wards still remained intact and untouched, even with this man sitting right in front of him. The wards should be indicating an intruder; or not be there at all if they were broken. His wards even included humanoid creatures like Vampires or Hags.

"Sorry for the intrusion. You can call me Whistler, I'm here to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity." Whistler said cheerfully, completely unfazed by the wand that Harry still held out in front of him.

"What are you?" Harry asked, he could only think of one reason as to why his wards weren't working, and that would be that Whistler was a creature either unknown to Harry, or completely forgotten when setting up his wards.

"Well, what do you know. A normal wizard would question the working condition of his wards. I had my doubts, I did; but maybe they did indeed choose correctly," Whistler mused.

Harry gave him a blank stare.

Whistler responded, "you'd think cross dimensional traveling would make me the least able in this conversation." Whistler chuckled. "To answer your question, I am a Demon. Now before you attack me like most of you hero types tend to do, I'd like to add that I'm one of the good guys."

Harry didn't know what to believe. He wasn't sure someone could be both a Demon and a good guy at the same time. He knew only one way to solve this quickly. He gave his wand a slight jab in Whistlers direction, "Legilimens," he whispered.

The demon jumped in surprise, but as he was seated at a table, he didn't have any means to dodge the transparent spell. Unexpectedly, nothing happened. Harry frowned. This particular spell wasn't his strong suit, which is why it required him to use the incantation to cast it, but Harry never had absolutely nothing happen at all after a casting. It must have been a fluke, he reasoned and prepared to cast it again. Before he could, Whistler interrupted him.

"Demon, remember?" he said, patting himself down to make sure he was still whole, "Whatever mumbo jumbo you decided to release just won't cut it." Harry nodded his thanks at the explanation; It appeared mind magic didn't work on this self-called demon. He would have to use force to restrain him and bring him into the ministry for questioning. "Don't you want to hear my offer?" Whistler said with a nervous glance to Harry's wand, which had started to move again.

"Go on," Harry replied, though he wasn't sure if the Demon could say anything that would avoid himself a trip to a prison cell. The extra time would let Harry prepare for any possible escape attempts and additional magic immunity.

"Can you put the stick down? This is kind of a long story, and as I'm not sure just how badly you can hurt me with that thing, I'd rather it wasn't pointed at my beautiful face," Whistler pleaded. Harry nodded, but not before flicking his wand and releasing a set of chains that wrapped themselves around the demon's torso, effectively tying it to the chair. Harry wasn't sure how strong or fast Demons were, but he figured that the chains would slow Whistler down long enough for him to redraw his wand if the Demon did decide to come at him.

"Just a precaution," Harry explained as he put his wand back into his robes. Whistler wiggled around in the chair for a bit to test the chains before frowning.

"Of course."

"You had a story to tell?" Harry asked, slightly disappointed that the Demon didn't put up any more of a fight. Whistler nodded and began to explain.

"First thing you need to know is that I am not from this universe."

"Alternate universes are real?" Harry asked in shocked. He had, of course, came across the theory in his research. Many have tried to create a ritual to send or bring something across universes. As far as Harry knew it had yet to be done. But then again, for all he knew the exact ritual was locked up in the Department of Mysterious somewhere.

"Okay good, so you've heard of them. I guess that takes off a good five minutes of explanation and questions," Whistler replied haughtily. The effect lost due to the chains that still strangled his torso. He continued after a moment, "In my universe, there is an ancient group of beings that we call The Powers That Be. They guide all forces in order to balance the forces of good and evil. I work for them."

"Balance? Why not just destroy all evil?" Harry asked. He didn't quite understand why people with such power wouldn't simply end evil.

"They were forced off of earth, and govern from afar. They can only control so much. The evil in this universe is strong. With demons roaming freely and with the ability to turn anybody into one of their own. The Powers That Be use their limited powers to turn the tide in any way that they can. Without them, the whole universe would be doomed."

"Yet they have a demon working for them?" Harry asked skeptically.

"Technically, I'm a half demon," Whistler explained. "I have a soul."

"And what does this have to do with me?" Harry was curious. This man might be bat shit insane, but the idea was interesting, and if it was true, any information could help Harry in his future experiments.

"The Powers That Be have saved up enough of their energy to foresee into the future and have found that your arrival into our universe would be the best course of action for the side of good."

"You have a lot of faith in these Powers," Harry observed. Whistler laughed.

"I'm over a thousand years old. I've seen a lot in my life, and I have no doubts that the actions of The Powers That Be are the only thing keeping that universe whole."

"And if I leave with you? Can I ever return? Can I send messages to my friends? Or am I abandoning my whole life for good?" Harry wondered. He assumed there was a way to travel back a forth. He didn't see how else the Powers would expect him to give up so much on one man's word.

"Probably not," Whistler said bluntly. "They advised me to tell you that you would need to prepare to leave this universe for good; never to return. Why? Do you have a lovely lady waiting for you upstairs?"

"No," Harry replied.

"Oh well that's too bad, I would love to see a woman that was able to capture your attention. You know, they sent me visions of your life before I came here, and I got to say. . ."

"I mean no. I'm not coming with you," Harry interrupted. Whistler was speechless for a moment.

"The Powers said that you'd. . ."

"I don't really care what they said. I'm not going to leave this world behind because someone who admits to being a demon asks me to come along with them. For all I know my arrival into that universe is to balance out the forces of evil," Harry rebutted. Whistler appeared angry for a minute until confusion took over.

"Evil? You're not evil. How could evil possibly benefit from you?"

"You just said these Demons can turn others. What if a demon gets a hold of my powers?" Harry asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, I don't think that can even happen," Whistler mumbled. His confidence disappearing after Harry's refusal. Suddenly, Whistler's face turned blank, his eyes lost focus and his mouth hung open.

"What the. . ." Harry muttered out loud before heading around the table in order to check on his intruder. Just as he reached Whistler, The demon's eyes refocused on him, causing Harry to back off.

"The Powers aren't happy," Whistler explained. Harry was about to let him know just how little he cared when Whistler continued, "They 'know' that you'll be happier over there than you are here."

"I don't trust you or your agenda," Harry concluded. "I'm not going with you."

"You don't really have a choice."

"Excuse me?" Harry asked, fingering his wand. As far as he knew, there were no laws prohibiting him from killing or severely maiming a demon. Whistler gave his wand a slight glance before smiling.

"With or without me, all the Powers have to do is snap their fingers and you'd be gone from this world. You have no choice," Whistler said smugly. Harry gripped his wand tight in anger but before he could do anything Whistler let out a cry of pain and went slack in the chair that he was still tied to. As Whistler started to recover from the strange attack, Harry scoped the room but shortly concluded that there wasn't another intruder. Whistler's body slowly started to lose its tension as he pulled himself together. He looked towards Harry with a frown on his face and tears in his eyes.

"The Powers have kindly told me that the choice is completely up to you," Whistler growled out, emphasizing the word kindly with thick sarcasm. "They are willing to offer you a trial run."

"Trial?" Harry asked in confusion.

"They'll send you to their universe for one year. After that one year is over they'll offer a one-way trip back to this universe."

Harry frowned, "If I'm still alive."

"If you're still alive," Whistler confirmed with a grin. His half demon nature showing his vindictive side after the pain that he just went through.

"How long do I have to decide?" Harry asked. The one year trial was a completely different matter. The only problem being that he wasn't sure if he could trust these Powers. Whistler being punished for saying that the Powers could simply teleport him over there without his permission could have simply been a manipulation to get him to agree.

Whistler's eyes turned blank again as he conversed with the Powers. He refocused on Harry after just a moment, "You have until this time tomorrow."

"I'll think about it," Harry promised. Whistler frowned before accepting the answer with a nod. The chains that bound him fell to the floor as the Demon simply vanished. The wards again refused to acknowledge the apparition. If it even was that.

Harry remained shocked at the whole encounter for a whole minute but was finally able to recover. He immediately made his way over to the Floo network that he had only just entered from ten minutes ago. With stiff movements, he grabbed some powder from the container on the mantle and threw it into the fireplace. Getting on his knees, he stuck his head in and called out, "Hermione? Ron? Is it safe to come through?"

Harry heard a distant call in response, "Hold on Harry! We'll come to you."

Harry backed up from the fireplace to make room for the new guests. Hermione and Ron were renting a Muggle apartment because they tended to host Muggle tutors to prepare for their university classes. Harry was meaning to look into seeing if a phone could work within his own house wards, but he knew their Floo Network was warded to prevent their visitors from accidentally witnessing its magic.

Green flames flashed into the fireplace and Ron stepped out with Hermione following right behind him. Ron walked up and gripped Harry's shoulder, "Harry! Long time!" Ron greeted with a grin before stepping aside to make room for Hermione's hug. Harry returned the hug gratefully. A year ago, he had still found hugs to be quite an awkward experience, but he had finally grown accustomed to the physical contact that he had missed out on in his childhood. It had been at least a month since Harry had talked to his two best friends. If he wasn't working for the ministry, he was working by himself in trying to make up for all the studying he missed in Hogwarts. It was amazing how much theory he hadn't understood because it didn't directly contribute to him staying alive at the time of his schooling.

"Not out celebrating?" Harry asked, wondering if his friends felt the same about the anniversary that had everyone else in the Wizarding World out partying.

Ron shook his head, "We had a family gathering earlier to honor Fred. I don't think any Weasley will ever celebrate this day." Harry offered him a sympathetic frown as Hermione walked into the kitchen to start making tea.

A minute later they were all sitting in the living room drinking tea when Harry broke the silence, "Well, I called you guys for a reason." Harry began to explaining his earlier visit from Whistler and the offer that was made to him. It didn't take long after Harry finished for Hermione to begin thinking out loud.

"There is no such thing as a Demon, or at least not in this world, and you're saying that he wasn't human? Of course, your wards are pretty solid, it's safe to assume he was telling the truth, or at least the truth that he believes. He could just be some crazy new hybrid of some sort that your wards weren't able to detect." Hermione trailed off as her dialogue turned internal.

"What do you think?" Harry asked Ron as Hermione continued to think to herself. Ron shrugged.

"It doesn't really matter if he's telling the truth or not, I still wouldn't want you to go with him. We might never see you again." Ron paused, "But I know you're not happy here doing what you're doing. You dislike your job, you're not looking to start a family, and you're looking for an adventure."

"I can go on an adventure without changing universes," Harry said with a smile. Ron raised an eyebrow.

"A world at war? Good versus evil? Demons? You're not going to get that traveling through Africa." Harry frowned as he mulled over Ron's words. He couldn't deny that Ron was right. Although he could look for adventure in his own world, the chance of finding any sort of conflict that rivaled this new worlds would be very slim. If Harry knew that he could trust the words of this Demon and the intentions of The Powers guiding him, then he would have jumped head first into the situation. The problem, however, remained that he couldn't trust them.

"What if this other world really needs you?" Hermione asked as he finally came out from within her own mind. Harry wasn't sure where she was going with that.

"Huh?" Harry asked eloquently. Beside him, Ron appeared just as confused.

"Well it's kind of weird, isn't it? That this near deity would travel across universes to find someone to help in their own world? They must be quite desperate for help if the balance is so off that they needed to use their power to travel across universes for help." Hermione paused to breathe, "This Whistler suggested that The Powers could see the future, but the possibilities must be endless. You're clearly a force of good, so even if there is slight chance that you could somehow be turned into one of these Demons, I think there would be far more scenario's where you fight against them. It wouldn't make sense to bring someone in who's that powerful just for a slight chance that you do get turned."

"So you believe that they are being honest?" Harry asked skeptically. Hermione tended to put her trust in those with authority or power until evidence proved otherwise.

"Logically it makes more sense," Hermione said, shrugging, "That doesn't mean I want you to go."

"But if they are so desperate for help, you could make a huge difference," Ron concluded. "Perhaps save many lives."

Ron and Hermione shared a quick glance before nodding to each other. "If you want to go, we support you," Hermione said with a frown. Her brain and her feelings contradicting each other.

Harry winced "So you do want me to go?"

"No!" Hermione and Ron immediately denied before Ron explained, "We don't want you to go, but we think you should if you want to. We don't want you to stay here being miserable on our behalf."

Harry didn't really have anything to say to that. It was true that the only thing keeping him in place were his two best friends. Even though they didn't speak nearly as often as Harry would have liked, he knew that they would be there for him no matter what. It was a comfortable feeling ."I do have a way out," Harry reasoned out loud. "If I decide to believe that."

"Well, you have a day to think about it," Hermione reminded.

No longer wanting to think about it, Harry decided to change the subject, "So have you decided where you two are going to head off to university in the fall?" Harry asked. Ron and Hermione ignored the less than creative topic change and humored him.

"We haven't decided quite yet," Hermione said with a sad smile.

Harry, Hermione and Ron spent the night talking. It began with them discussing the last month or so of their lives. Harry with his research, and Hermione and Ron with their studying. It soon turned into a night of reminiscing with a bottle of fire-whiskey. Not about the war, or Hogwarts, but the many great times they had among themselves that didn't involve fighting for their lives. Harry, of course, remembered some parts of the war fondly, including their Gringotts break in or the many nights they spent out in their tent goofing off to release the stress. Ron and Hermione were both glad that those violent times were behind them, but humored him.

Early the next morning, they decided to call it a day. Ron and Hermione both left through the Floo without another mention of Harry's potential departure, and he was thankful for it. He soon found himself lying on the couch, far too tired and drunk to get himself upstairs. He drifted off to sleep.

Almost immediately Harry was bombarded with images. Images full of men and women with strange demonic faces and large fangs. Terrorizing villages, killing families, and drinking their blood. Images of a short blonde girl fighting these same figures. Using a piece of wood to kill them. This same woman defeating countless of these creatures, some fights effortless, some fights nearly costing her life. The last set of images was this same girl, finally being defeated by a larger demon, her body floating in a shallow pool of water.

* * *

Harry woke up with a start and a groan. His head pounding as a direct consequence of drinking too much the night before. Harry fumbled for his wand for a second before summoning a hangover cure from his stash in the kitchen and gratefully swallowing it down. Now that his mind was clear, he wondered if the dreams he had last night were visions from The Powers. Perhaps it was merely his own imagination keeping his sleep restless. He grimaced as those same images played again in his head with perfect recall.

They were disjointed and didn't feel dream like. More like a group of still moving pictures that tried to tell a story. A story of horror in the lives of everyday people. People who were far too defenseless to protect themselves. One vision even had a soldier fight back against an attacking Demon with a shotgun to the stomach but it hardly even slowed it down. Harry knew that if these images were true, he would have a very hard time saying no.

"I need to talk to Whistler," Harry said out loud while looking at the clock. He still had five hours before his deadline. He spent far too much of the time remaining talking with his friends and sleeping, and not nearly enough time making the potentially life-changing decision. The Powers must have been listening because Whistler appeared soundlessly in the chair across from him. Whistler tipped his hat in greeting, unfazed with his own teleportation powers.

"Did you enjoy the dreams?" Whistler asked solemnly. Harry was surprised, but not really. He had already correctly assumed that the dreams weren't just a figment of his imagination.

"All those. . ." Harry paused to find the right word, "images were from this war of yours?" Whistler nodded.

"All within the last two years. Although it's hard to call it a war. Their numbers far out number our own, and many of the people we have to protect still remain oblivious to the horrors outside their windows." Harry nodded as he thought of the similarities between his own war and theirs. Many of the Wizarding World refused to fight. Either they were too afraid to stand up, didn't care who won, or even secretly supported Voldemort. It came to just a fraction of the total population on each side of the war that decided their future. But at least they knew of the war happening around them.

"And that blonde haired girl I saw. She fought in the war?" Whistler nodded grimly.

"She's one of the many who have fought and died to protect us."

Harry once again saw the similarities. Only a year ago Harry was lying in the forest, seemingly dead to the world. The war lost. The only difference is that the girl didn't survive. "Okay," Harry said finally. Leaving Hermione and Ron in order to follow a path of an adrenaline junkie didn't seem right to him. Leaving his friends behind in order to try to protect a world from demons and save as many people as he possibly could didn't seem like an offer that he could morally refuse. Perhaps if he refused, they would offer someone with more skill to save their world? However, perhaps he was their last real chance at balancing the scale. "I'll go." Harry relented.

Whistler smiled but was hardly jumping up and down in excitement. "There is one more. . . condition," He said with a wince.

"What now?" Leaving his world and his friends with the likely scenario of never returning wasn't enough?

"You can't take anything with you," Whistler explained, "except your wand and your clothes. There are far too many outcomes for disaster if you decide to take reading material, wealth or anything of further magical use." Harry shrugged in response. That didn't seem so bad. He would have preferred to take potions, ingredients, gold and other items like his invisibility cloak. Books that could potentially help him travel back home would also have been another option. Harry wondered if that last item on his list was The Powers main reason for this rule.

"Could these Powers of yours. . . perhaps. . . notify my friends if something happens to me?" Harry asked tentatively. Harry knew Ron and Hermione could deal with his death, but the not knowing would hurt them daily. Whistler began to shrug, but his body tensed up in the middle of the motion. His eyes glazed over and unfocused.

"They agree," Whistler said simply as he came to. Harry didn't know if they'd keep the promise, but it was something that he could at least tell his friends when he said goodbye. Hopefully, it would give them some peace of mind.

"You ready?" Whistler asked. Harry shook his head as he climbed up from the couch and headed out of the room.

"I need to say goodbye," Harry explained. He grabbed a handful of Floo powder, preparing to Floo his friends. He paused as a thought came to him. They had all just about said goodbye to each other the night before. They seemed to know what his choice was going to be before he did. Still, he didn't want to leave without a word. Harry changed his destination to that of his study. Sitting down, he quickly penned a letter.

 _Hermione, Ron and of all my friends,_

 _I have taken the offer that Hermione and Ron will soon explain to you. I am sorry that I was never able to sit down and enjoy life after the war. You are all now very well aware of my restless nature. That combined with my famous 'saving people thing' means that I can't in good conscience deny this world that needs my help. I have received a promise that either Hermione or Ron will be notified if something happens to me._

 _I wish you all well,_

 _Harry_

Harry read through the letter and nodded. He knew it was short, but he also knew anyone he cared enough to notify would know him well enough to understand his choice; Hermione and Ron certainly seemed to. Harry placed the letter on the table next to his fireplace in obvious view of anyone who came through. Harry imagined that Hermione or Ron would soon be visiting to hear his decision. He didn't have much more to say to them after the night before, and he figured a letter would be easier for all of them.

Harry walked back to his living room where Whistler still sat patiently. His thoughts were in turmoil. Saying goodbye to his friends for potentially forever was hitting him hard. However, he could already feel the adrenaline starting to pump through his veins. A feeling he hadn't felt in a year. A feeling that he greatly missed. Whistler stood up as he walked into the room.

"Ready?" He asked.

Harry nodded. "Let's go."


	2. Chapter Two : Meet And Greet

_Author Notes - I am a horrible person. One chapter and then leave for eight months? I don't even deserve the generous amount of reviews that you all left me. I won't try to give you an excuse because I don't have a good one. I will simply tell you what happened._

 _I wrote chapter two, was in the middle of editing it when I decided to scrap it completely. It was basically a rewrite of my original story and I decided that that wouldn't do. Instead, I wrote something new. I was halfway through when I decided that my original plans just weren't going to work out. I needed to go far deeper into magical theory and build up. I couldn't have a story that jumped from action to action with little room for side plots and deviation. It would basically become a Buffy season 3-7 with a wizard sidekick. That wouldn't do._

 _So I started to brainstorm. That brainstorm turned into a loss of interest, and now, eight months later, my interest has returned with a lot of ideas. I have the third chapter written, it just needs a lot of editing and cleaning. The fourth chapter is about 4,000 words in. Those eight months were spent, "not" writing, so I doubt my writing has improved any. Here's to hoping that it's not too rough._

 _Here we go._

* * *

Chapter Two

 _"Ready?" Whistler asked._

 _Harry nodded. "Let's go"_

Whistler smiled and Harry felt his body tense, as he expected that a trip across dimensions would not feel very pleasant. A moment later Harry relaxed, as nothing happened. Whistler frowned and Harry raised an eyebrow in question. Whistler shrugged, "You should be leaving at any. . ."

Whistler's sentence was cut off instantly as the world fell away from him. Whistler and Grimmauld Place were gone, and instead, he was surrounded by darkness. It was only a moment later that he began to feel a strange sensation. It felt like what Harry imagined being pushed to the bottom of the ocean without any protective gear would feel like. Intense pressure was pushing down on him from all directions. Harry tried to resist, but he could very nearly feel his ribs begin to bend under the strain. When Harry was sure his ribs were beginning to break, the pressure disappeared in an instant, and a new world appeared around him as he was slammed into hard concrete. Harry's stomach began to churn as soon as he landed, but he was miraculously able to keep his hangover cure down and the nauseous feeling began to pass. Harry was glad that he had elected to surgically fix his eyesight the Muggle way during his Auror training. He wouldn't have wanted his first moments in this world to be that of a blind man scrambling to summon and fix his glasses.

Harry brought himself to his feet, and for the first time realized that he was not alone. There were about half a dozen people surrounding him. Three of which were on the ground around him scrambling to get away from him. Harry wondered if these were The Powers That Be. He then noticed that he appeared to be standing on an altar of sorts with strange ingredients and lit candles.

"Who are you?" asked an English middle-aged man with glasses. He appeared to be the only adult in the room, the rest of the group looked like teenagers. The man's confusion at Harry's appearance seemed to answer his earlier question that these were in fact not The Powers That Be. Perhaps the powers had hijacked another group's ritual?

"I didn't do it!" a redhead in a large pink sweater with daisies around the collar claimed in shock as she got to her feet. The three closest to him backed up and instead, a young tall dark haired man with spiked hair and a short girl with long blonde hair stepped forward and went into a loose fighting pose. It seemed these two were the fighters of the group. Harry recognized the girl as the woman who had died during his visions. Perhaps a year or two older, but still very much alive. Perhaps she did die, and now she was one of the demons she had been fighting against?

Harry's own confusion must have been visible on his face because the British man didn't push for Harry to answer his question. Harry looked around briefly for an escape route. He appeared to be in a large abandoned factory, and it was dark, so he wouldn't be able to Apparate out. A visual memory was basically a requirement for Apparition, and seeing as he had none of those in this world, the best he would be able to do was to Apparate to the door. Judging by the ritual that he had just interrupted, these people had magic; and Harry wasn't sure just how powerful that magic was. Rather than risk trying to retreat, Harry instead decided to appear non-threatening. Harry held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. Although he appeared harmless, he would be able to draw out his wand incredibly fast, he just hoped none of them knew that. Judging by the fact that none of them seemed to be holding a wand of their own, Harry would take a bet that they didn't. The magic in his world might not even exist in this one.

No one moved for a moment, but the older man was the first one to break the silence as he scrambled for his bag and took out a wooden object and a glass jar of water. Harry realized after a moment that it was a wooden cross as the man held it out in front of him in Harry's direction. Harry tensed and his eye's narrowed dangerously. Was this the man's version of a wand? After a second nothing happened and Harry relaxed. That's when the man opened the bottle of liquid and went to splash it on him. Harry flicked his finger and his wand fell out of his holster and into his hand. Before the water could impact him, he Apparated to the closest exit. Harry didn't wait for them to follow before testing the handle to make sure it wasn't locked. It wasn't. Harry turned around with his wand in front of him. Half of the group were still staring at the spot that Harry had been and the small puddle on the floor. However, the two that Harry had earlier assumed were the fighters of the group had already spotted his new placement and were beginning to run at him.

"Stop!" Harry shouted with his wand pointed in their direction, "I don't want to hurt you." The man eyed the wand suspiciously but the girl didn't look all that impressed.

"Well give me a reason to, and I'll happily hurt you," she replied in an American accent but stopped approaching him all the same. The older gentleman walked over and brought out another filled bottle from his bag.

"What is that?" Harry asked suspiciously, well aware that the man was planning to once again pour it on him. The man appeared surprised for a bit before understanding

"It's Holy Water," he replied. Harry raised a disbelieving eyebrow and the man poured some on himself as a way of answer. "It's harmless," he explained, "If you aren't a vampire." He held it up with a questioning look, asking for permission to use it. Harry frowned but nodded. The man brought the bottle forward and splashed it all over Harry's face. Harry frowned at the rather rudely placed water.

"Satisfied?" Harry asked, gesturing to his drenched face and hair. The man nodded.

The blonde girl turned to the redhead, "Good job Will, you didn't bring back a vampire this time," she said with a smirk. The redhead pouted and opened her mouth, surely to proclaim her innocence one more time.

Before she could, a girl with light brown hair spoke up, "Well, he's not human. All my time on this earth and I've never seen anything but a demon achieve near instant teleportation."

Harry frowned at the implication but didn't say anything. Instead, he raised his wand to his face and flicked it, ignoring the blonde girl as she tensed. His hair and face dried instantly. The redhead perked up at seeing his spell, but the British man frowned in disapproval.

"Before I answer any questions or volunteer for any more of your strange tests, I have one question for you," Harry said, looking the blonde in the eye as they widened in surprise. "I was under the assumption that you died," Harry began bluntly, "like two years ago." The girl looked towards her friends clearly looking for answers but they all shrugged back at her.

"Yup." she answered finally, turning back around, "I drowned, and then came back." Harry nodded in thought. Perhaps she had been resuscitated? Still, he had to be sure. He gestured to the older man.

"You mind giving yourself a refreshing bath?" Harry asked the girl. The rest of the group chuckled in amusement. Harry was sure he was missing something about his request but figured it was better to be safe than sorry after when traveling to a whole new dimension. The older man took out a third bottle of holy water and threw it at the girl. The girl reached up and snagged it from mid air with little effort and proceeded to drink from it. Nothing happened except for an amusing smirk that appears on her face. Harry shrugged.

"The people who sent me here used your death to convince me that you all needed my help," Harry explained before re holstering his wand and sticking out his hand to the blonde girl, who happened to be the closest one to him,"I'm Harry Potter."

The blonde girl looked at his hand suspiciously at first but finally relented. "Buffy," She said. Still, she refused to take the necessary steps to shake his hand. Harry dropped his hand with a shrug. Harry looked at the rest of them.

"Angel," offered up the tall dark haired man who would have joined Buffy in pummeling Harry. The rest followed. Willow was the red haired girl with the pink sweater, followed by Anya, the girl who still thought he wasn't human, and Rupert Giles was the older man; though he said it was alright to call him Giles. The rest of the group was made up of two teen boys named Oz and Xander. Oz was short with red hair, while Xander was taller and black haired. A majority of them were American, as far as Harry could tell, which meant that he could safely assume that he was now in America. Once the introductions were done, the rest of the group came a little closer, with Buffy and Angel relaxing their stances a tad. Harry thought for sure that this was more due to the fact that he was no longer holding his wand. Although the two didn't seem to know what it was capable of, they still recognized it as a potential threat. They stepped back in order to let Giles take the lead now that the potential danger seemed to have passed.

"Now, you say you were sent here? What for?" Giles asked, adjusting his glasses and peering intently at Harry as if preparing to devour the next words that came out of his mouth. Harry figured that these people would have already killed him if they were soulless creatures and decided that cooperation was the best course for him.

"An agent from these people that call themselves The Powers That Be came to me talking about how this universe needed my help," Harry started, "they were quite convincing. They even sent me images of Buffy over there," Harry gestured to the girl, "fighting countless of these vampire creatures before drowning in a puddle of water." The rest of the group glanced at each other nervously after he finished.

"The Powers That Be don't have nearly enough power to send someone across universes," said Giles plainly.

"That's a thing? The Powers That Be? Who would call themselves that?" Buffy asked shocked. Giles explained.

"They were once all powerful creatures, almost godlike, but they were forced off this plane by evil forces. They are now forced to watch from afar, only able to intervene in the smallest of ways."

"More like The Powers That Were then," Oz quipped from the back.

Harry glanced over at the altar that still had three candles burning brightly. The rest followed his gaze. "Perhaps they hijacked your little ritual here," Harry proposed.

"That's not possible. They can't do that," Willow argued. She appeared thoughtful for a moment before turning to Giles, "Can they do that?" she asked hopelessly.

Giles thought about the possibility for a moment before responding, "there is very little information on what The Powers are capable of. Most scholars over the last hundreds of years no longer even consider them part of the war against evil. It's assumed that their reach hardly even extends into this plane. They must have used a great deal of their influence and power to achieve this feat," Giles paused to give Harry one more intense look, "if he's telling us the truth."

Harry frowned but didn't see the point in arguing. "Well, Whistler said. . ." Harry began but was interrupted by Angel and Buffy who both repeated the name under their breath. Harry raised an eyebrow, "Know him?"

Angel nodded. "He's the reason why I'm in Sunnydale," he explained.

Buffy frowned before explaining her own reaction, "He told me how to stop Acathla."

"So he's a good guy?" Harry asked, assuming that Acathla was some sort of demon, and also quite relieved that it didn't appear he had been duped.

"As far as we can tell," Giles responded.

Willow stepped forward. "So what can you do?" She asked with interest.

"Willow!" Buffy exclaimed, shocked.

Willow looked back innocently. "What? These great powers sent this guy to help us and we can't even ask what sort of help he can muster. Super strength? Immortality? He must be able to do more than teleport."

"Quite right," Giles agreed to the surprise of the others. "If the Powers foresee the victory of evil in this eternal war, then we can't waste much time, we need to figure out if this. . . man," Giles proposed skeptically, "Can help us stop a potential world wide apocalypse."

Harry wasn't sure just what he could do to convince these people that he was human, but he wasn't about to offer up a sample of his blood.

Xander stepped forward, "Well that's great and all, but could we maybe go somewhere with some chairs first. And pillows?" Harry noticed the bags under his eyes. It appeared they had had a long night before he showed up.

"Don't forget caffeine," Buffy added. Giles relented to the request and the group began to pack up what was left of their supplies to the ritual. Buffy and Angel, instead of helping the others, stayed and kept an eye on Harry.

"Where we going?" Harry asked as the group appeared ready to leave the abandoned building. They all exchanged glances with each other before seemingly agreeing without a word.

"The high school," Giles answered shortly. Harry thought it was a strange place to meet up, but reasoned that none of them wanted him in their places of residence.

The group escorted him out, with Buffy and Angel on either side of him. They weren't trying to appear threatening, Harry knew. They were just being cautious, and Harry could respect that. That didn't mean he didn't have his wand a thought away with a battle plan already forming just in case it was needed. Anya split off from the rest of the group and went her own way. None of the rest seemed to care because no one argued for her to stay.

They all climbed into two vehicles with Harry in the back seat of one of them with Buffy and Angel still on either side of him; their placement surrounding him being no mere coincidence. Harry looked passed Angel, to peer out of the window as they drove. It appeared he was in a relatively small town rather than a city. There weren't any shops open as far as he could tell, nor any people on the streets or out for walks. The few people he saw were merely shadows from within their homes. Harry didn't think it was normal for the streets to be deserted this late, but he guessed even if people weren't aware of the war going on around them, they could still sense the danger.

Eventually, they drove into the back parking lot of a large building that Harry assumed was the school. They made their way out of the cars and through the back door and soon found themselves in a decent size school library where they all sat around a large table. Oz went to get everyone caffeinated, and Xander immediately slouched over in his chair, putting his head in his arms and closing his eyes. Buffy and Angel, not surprisingly, sat on either side of him, far enough away to give him space, but close enough to reach over and grab his arm if he got any ideas. Harry wasn't sure how he thought about putting himself in a position where he could be so easily trapped, but he knew he would have to extend an ounce of trust in order to achieve anything in that universe.

Before anything could happen, the two doors leading into the library from the rest of the school swung open and a young man with glasses entered. His walk towards the group came to a complete halt as he looked towards Willow.

"Everyone get back! She's a vampire!" he exclaimed dramatically as he rushed to open the briefcase in his right hand in order to rummage through it for something.

"Relax Wesley," Giles said calmly before explaining. He told a tale about how a magic ritual of Willow's had gone bad and brought forth an evil vampire Willow from another universe. Wesley only relaxed when he heard that they sent the evil Willow back.

"Really, Miss Rosenberg?" Wesley stated incredulously. "you must be more careful when you practice magic in the future. It is not a toy for you to play with. You nearly killed Cordelia."

Willow nodded and bowed her head, appropriately shamed. Harry frowned, but kept to himself. He didn't know enough about this world's magic to say otherwise.

That's when Wesley noticed Harry. "Who is this? Why was I not informed?" he asked, gesturing to Harry. Harry raised an eyebrow. Was he the boss?

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, clearly exhausted, and seemingly coming down with a headache. "If you would just sit down, we were about to find out," Giles said harshly. Wesley looked like he wanted to argue, but with one look at the clearly agitated older man, he complied and took a seat at the head of the table instead. Oz returned with the coffee and handed it out, with everyone but Harry, Wesley, and Angel taking a cup. Giles remained the only one standing after everyone settled down and started sipping from their drinks. It took only a minute before everyone began to noticeably wake up and sit up straighter and more alert. Xander even had his eyes open.

"Perhaps we can start with the story of how you arrived here," Giles said reasonably, and so Harry did. He didn't go into too much detail. He didn't explain his world, his magic, nor his job, he just explained that Whistler came into his house uninvited, offered him a chance to come to this world to help others and he took it. After he was done, the group shared looks, probably wondering if he was sane.

"I know it sounds completely nutters," Harry confided, "but I spent my whole life in conflict. Since I was one, it was a constant struggle for survival. Either it was my family who wasn't very kind to me or my peers who went out of their way to make my life miserable. Later in life, it was a group of homicidal terrorists who very much wanted me dead." Harry struggled to find the words to properly explain, "I spent seventeen years of my life in a struggle to survive and live a normal life, and when it was all over, I found that a normal life wasn't for me."

Giles appeared thoughtful, "Still, to throw away your entire life to come here is very. . ." Giles paused in order to think of an appropriate word.

"Bonkers?" Harry offered with a smile.

Giles shook his head, "I was going to say courageous." The others nodded in agreement but Harry strongly disagreed with them all. All the visions Whistler had sent him about people suffering had definitely pushed him to jump across universes, but Harry would be lying if he said that he hadn't been tempted just at the idea of there being danger waiting for him. He left Hermione, Ron, the Weasleys, and even Teddy. He knew Teddy would be alright in the care of his grandmother, but Harry still couldn't help feeling a little guilty about the quickness of his decision. Still, he didn't see the point in trying to argue that his decision was selfish and stupid; he didn't think that would make a very good first impression.

"May I ask why I was invited to jump into this universe? Is it really as bad as these Powers have been saying?" Harry asked skeptically. He was half expecting to land right in the middle of a war, with his wand and power becoming immediately useful. However, this group seemed to have the time to sit down and talk at length about his arrival and hardly seemed to have the weight of the world on their shoulders like Harry and his friends had experienced in the last year of the war.

"Yes, it's very interesting," Giles responded. "with Buffy and Faith, we are strong already, but add Angel and Willow's new powers into the mix and we are as strong as we have ever been. It doesn't make sense why they'd be so desperate for your help."

Harry allowed Giles to think out loud without interrupting to ask exactly why these four were powerful.

"Do you think it's just because of the Mayor?" Buffy asked.

Giles frowned in thought before responding, "Possibly. However, even if the Mayor's succeeds in whatever he is planning, the worst that can happen is Sunnydale is destroyed and we all die." Oz and Xander snorted but Giles explained further, "I haven't been able to find anything in my books about an end of the world event to happen this year. The Powers That Be wouldn't bring someone from another universe to prevent the destruction of one town and a couple of Slayers. Thousands of Slayers have died without The Powers intervening. I think there is something in play that we aren't aware of," Giles said honestly

"Slayers?" Harry asked.

Giles was lost in thought, so instead Buffy explained, "A Slayer is kind of like a chosen one. She is gifted with a demon's powers and in return, she is expected to fight any evil that pops up until her death."

Harry winced at the explanation, "What if she refuses?"

Buffy just shrugged before looking towards Giles with a pointed glance. "Sorry?" He said in confusion before his brain finally caught up to the conversation. He shook his head before responding, "A Slayer refusing to fight has never happened. The power of the Slayer has so far been perfect in understanding which young girls will be willing to fight. Either because they accept the responsibility, or because they. . . well, they just like fighting."

"Also known as Faith," Buffy quipped.

"Faith is a slayer too?" Harry asked in confusion.

Buffy nodded, "The Slayer power had already chosen a new Slayer before I was brought back to life when I drowned."

"What about Angel and Willow?" Harry asked, remembering that they were included in Giles' naming of powerful people.

"Angel is a vampire," Xander offered with a smile as if passing that knowledge onto Harry had pleased him.

"A vampire with a soul," Buffy corrected with a heated glare sent across the table at Xander, who didn't seem to mind and only grinned back.

"That's rare?" Harry asked.

Angel explained, "I have a soul because I was cursed. If I ever achieve complete happiness, I will lose the soul and go back to killing and terrorizing everyone."

Harry visibly shuddered, "Merlin!" Harry placed himself in the man's shoes for a moment and wondered out loud, "Why don't, you know, end it?" Harry asked, sliding a finger across his throat. He wasn't just what could kill a vampire in this world, but he imagined decapitation would work.

Buffy got up from her chair in anger but Angel gave an understanding smile. "I've thought about it many times. Deep down I think I'm just terrified where I'll go once it's all over. After all the things I have done, I don't think I'll have a peaceful afterlife," Angel said while glancing at the table, "and I need to make up for all the wrongs that I have done."

Harry scoffed, "Bollocks. I've been here for like a couple of hours and have already learned that all vampires are bad. If all vampires are bad regardless of the person that they were, then how can you possibly be responsible?" Buffy smiled at him, clearly pleased and sat back down. "Did you go on killing sprees once your soul was restored?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No but. . ." Angel tried to argue. Harry shook his head with sadness.

"Anyone who blames the soul of a human with the actions of a demon needs a reality check," Harry finished. Angel sat up a little bit straighter and gave him a nod of thanks even though he didn't look like he believed it to be true. Xander and Giles were abnormally quiet, but Harry noticed Buffy sending them a look of complete smug.

"You might not think the same if he took away someone you deeply cared for," Giles spoke up after a minute. Harry shook his head. He knew he was about to give up a valuable piece of information to make a point, but he was comfortable enough in his abilities to fight back if they turned hostile.

"We have a spell in our world. It takes perhaps one second to cast, and if you are hit with it by a wizard or witch with a stronger willpower than your own, then your actions are basically theirs. You will do anything that they demand you to," Harry tried to explain, "even our government, which tends to have a stick up their arses, knows that the actions of someone under that spell can't be punished. Their actions were simply not their own. That's all I see here."

Wesley sat up straight in alarm. "We can't have that kind of power wielded against us," he exclaimed, oblivious to the fact at how hostile those words sounded to the only wand wizard in the world.

"Yet but it would be nice to have us use it against them," Oz said with a straight face.

Harry shook his head, "It's not a spell to be used lightly. I'd only use it rarely and if it saved a life and I had no other choice. The power you feel when you use that curse can be highly addicting."

"And how many times have you used it?" Giles asked rationally.

"Twice," Harry decided to answer honestly, "both to save thousands of lives."

Giles gave a short nod which Harry assumed meant that it was an acceptable number.

"What else can your magic do?" Willow asked with her head on her hands listening intently.

"A lot," Harry shrugged. "my magic is virtually limitless, the only problem is that I can currently only do things that I know how to do. I have no books here to teach me more, nor anyone who could teach me. Anything new I learn will have to be through experimentation." Internally, Harry was doing something he never thought he would do, and that was thank the boredom of his job as an Auror. He had spent the last year or so learning the basics in almost all branches of magic. He knew he wouldn't be able to create the most complex wards in existence at the drop of a hat, but he had the basics learned and understood. Through time, he could start inventing his own magic.

"I can't imagine what I would do if all the books on magic just vanished," Willow said with a slight whine before wrinkling her nose in disgust at the thought.

They continued to ask and answer each other's questions. Harry learned about the Hellmouth and its common threats. Mainly Demons and Vampires. Harry learned more about the fact that Willow was a practicing witch, though she still claimed that she was just dabbling. He was very interested in learning more about how the magic here worked, but he figured that he had plenty of time to figure all that stuff out later.

He learned a little more about the demons of the world and received an open invitation from Giles to pop in and help himself to a little light reading. They in return asked a lot of questions about his world and his abilities. Harry tried not to be too specific but answered their questions honestly. They told him about their situation. It appeared the Mayor of the town was in the middle of cahoots with a Vampire and they weren't sure why. The only thing they suspected was that an accomplice of the Mayor was going to come to them with information before he was tragically killed by Faith. A complete accident that she was still working to get through.

"It has actually been quite a slow year," Giles said, "We've had to deal with various apocalyptic events in the past. Your help would have been greatly appreciated then. The only explanation is that The Powers know something big is coming, and that we are liable to fail." Giles finished to a silent room.

Buffy was the first to recover from the sour atmosphere. "The only thing worse than a big bad is a big bad that you don't see coming," Buffy joked with a pout. The silence continued for a minute before Xander yawned, his caffeine fix wearing off.

Giles rubbed his nose wearily for the second time of the night. "It's getting late, perhaps we should all get some rest," Giles reasoned. He barely finished before everyone started getting to their feet, happy to be heading home and getting some sleep. They slowly gathered their things and headed out until it was only Harry, Giles, Wesley and Buffy in the room. Buffy looked like she wanted more than anything to go to sleep, but at the same time didn't quite trust Harry to be in a room alone with Giles. Harry knew it wasn't a good idea to tell her that he could pop into the library whenever he wanted. They never went into that much detail when questioning him about his abilities, a mistake that would probably be obvious to them in the morning after they got some rest. They even seemed to have completely forgotten to ask about his teleportation abilities.

Giles then turned to Harry. "You need someplace to sleep? Perhaps some money?" he offered hospitably. Harry shook his head. He knew he must have seemed quite pitiful. He had no food, money, clothes or a place to sleep. However, his magic would help him get most of that stuff on his own.

"I'd like it if you stayed in touch," Giles said. Harry nodded at the request because he knew that if he just disappeared, he'd probably have two slayers, a vampire, and perhaps even a witch out looking for him. As Giles bid him farewell, Wesley could no longer stand the situation.

"You can't just let him leave after all the things he admitted to being able to do," Wesley exclaimed in shock. "He must be watched closely in order to make sure he isn't doing more harm than good. It's unfathomable that these Powers would do something so reckless! When The Council hears about this," Wesley finished, trailing off in rage. Harry let out a chuckle, which only seemed to infuriate Wesley more.

"Tell a potential ally that you consider him too powerful to be anything but an enemy. Very smart," Harry said sarcastically. "This is your world and I'll do my best to be an honorable guest, but if you come at me, then don't expect me to play nice," Harry cautioned Wesley with a glare. He armed himself with his wand and then smiled at Giles and Buffy. "Thank you for the hospitality, and for answering my many questions. I will keep in touch," Harry promised. Harry waited only for Giles to confirm that he heard him before he Apparated away.

He appeared in the same building that he had only recently been escorted out of. He needed someplace to stay, and although the factory was in shambles, it was nothing that a little bit of magic and hard work wouldn't be able to fix. He thought he was probably being a little sentimental. This place was technically the one place in this world that he could argue was the closest to his own world. It was only hours before that they were connected by magic. He walked through the place on the floor where the altar had been. This very spot had a gateway to his home; to his world where Hermione, Teddy, Ron and the rest of the Weasley's were. It was as close to a place resembling home that he would probably find for a very long time.

Harry looked around and winced, the place looked like someone had recently set the place on fire and decided to tear the building down, only to leave midway through the job. Thankfully, the structure wasn't completely made out of wood, so the fire hadn't been able to spread through the whole building, or it would have been a lost cause. Harry took out his wand, and walked the edges of the building, casting multiple repairing charms anywhere that looked damaged. There were cracks in beams holding up the building that magically sealed together, there were holes in the side paneling that would magically come back together, and there was even a large hole in a staircase where it looks like somebody had fallen through and gotten hurt. He cleaned up all the dried up blood and repaired the staircase as well as the support structure underneath. It was many hours later that Harry finally stopped. He had been through the whole building five times and this was the first pass where he hadn't spotted one thing that needed repairing. He looked around at his handy work and wasn't all that impressed.

It was an abandoned building, but not a home. It was basically a large empty space with steps leading down to a small storage area and a metal suspension walkway as a second story. Even though no one in their right mind would call this building a home, he shrugged to himself; It would do for now. The structure was no longer in danger of collapsing around him, and there were no longer random holes that anybody could just walk through. Once he warded and locked the entrances, he would feel safe enough to sleep and experiment here. He didn't think there was a point in trying to renovate the building since it didn't belong to him. He knew he could simply steal the building with no magical government put in place to stop him, but it wouldn't have felt right. Plus, he didn't think it was smart to bring any more attention to himself than he needed to. He didn't know just how aware the government was about the magic and demons of their world.

Muggle money was incredibly easy to duplicate with magic, but conjuration didn't last forever. Eventually, the money would just vanish, leaving some Muggle poorer. A Muggle who couldn't even go to authorities and explain why his money disappeared. It was worse than thievery. At least in cases of thievery, someone's insurance could pay for it, and they had a chance of recovering their lost merchandise.

No, Harry would have to figure out how he was going to make money in this world, but he didn't think that would be a problem. He had gifts that no one else in the world had. If he couldn't figure out a proper way to market that in his favor, then he probably didn't deserve Whistler's offer. He couldn't go around selling his magical services to anybody with money though. It would garner far too much attention. The last thing he needed was the United States Government knocking on his door. Harry sighed as he thought of another problem; his wand. He was in a universe with no Wand-makers, and he hadn't been able to bring anything with him, for example, a spare wand. The wand sitting in his hostler was his most precious possession. He winced as he thought about what would happen if something happened to it. If it snapped, he would be basically useless. Sure he could perhaps brew some potions, but even most of those required a wand to be at its most potent. Many potions required a magic users attention in order for the ingredients to form a bond and become more potent. Although he wasn't sure just how that would work in this world.

Without a wand, The Powers would have basically done a useless ritual to send a useless wizard to this world to achieve nothing.

Before he could even think about a way to make money, he had to find a way to make a wand. Harry knew how to do a basic construction of a staff, and they were similar creations. Harry had learned how to make a staff about five months ago. He had wondered if using a larger object to channel his magic would produce better results. It had not. In fact, the larger the staff, the harder it was for him to aim his casts, and it even made learning new wand movements incredibly difficult. Eventually, he had scrapped the idea completely and only kept the staff for decoration purposes. He decided that the first thing he would do would be to create a just in case staff. Harry would need his wand to create it, so it only made sense to create a backup right away. He just had to figure out what kind of core he could use. Harry looked down at his wand with a wince. He would have to leave the creation of the staff for another day. One of the main components required was a magical core, and he had no idea how he would go about finding one in this world.

Instead, he decided to take a nap. He had just slept before coming to this universe, and he knew he would have trouble falling back asleep, but he figured that there really wasn't anything more productive he could be doing at the moment.

With a wave of his wand, he conjured a decent sized bed. He was skilled enough in Transfiguration for his conjurations to last long enough to sleep in. It caused a few of his fellow Aurors bouts of jealousy as their makeshift beds would be gone far before they were finished resting in them. Walking around, he proceeded to lock and ward all the entrances and even walked around the outside of the building to order to begin setting up a perimeter ward; It was a good idea to give himself enough time to wake up from any breach and react appropriately. He kept all his senses alert at the darkness that surrounded him. It was the dead of night now, and the building gave away no sources of light. He didn't have any experiences with the dangers of this world, and he wasn't sure just how fast, big, or strong some of the demons were. It would be quite embarrassing if he didn't even last one night alone in this world before being eaten by one of the many things that went bump in the night.

With his new home now secure, he wandered back into the building and went to the makeshift bed, leaving his wand in its holster still strapped to his arm. He had gotten used to being able to put his wand away before going to bed, but he knew he was going to have to start sleeping with it again like he had done in the war against Voldemort. His wand was now his greatest and only possession, it made sense to keep it with him at all times.

His mind began to race with the possibilities of this new world. He just hoped he was up to the challenge. His recent magic work must have tired him out more than he had originally thought because it took no time at all before his mind settled down and he was able to drift off into sleep.


	3. Chapter Three : Making Sense

_Author Notes - Well, at least it didn't take me eight months to get another chapter out. Thanks for all the reviews last chapter. It pleased me to see that people were still interested in reading it even after I virtually abandoned them._

 _I got a couple confusing reviews, however. A few people seemed to think that Harry was stupid for not bringing anything. I thought this was strange because Whistler specified that he 'couldn't' bring anything. Perhaps they meant that Harry was stupid for coming along when he couldn't bring anything. I don't know, but I wanted to clear it up. A few of these reviews were from guests, who I couldn't contact directly._

 _Hopefully, the story will eventually explain just why this condition from Whistler and The Powers were put in place. Although as an Author, I wanted Harry to come without the benefits of a trunk filled with everything he could ever need, I also made sure The Powers have a very good reason for it._

 _I find the hardest part about writing Buffy Fanfiction is that every time I do research by watching an episode, I'm once again blown away at the dialogue and characterizations of the characters. It makes me feel completely unworthy when trying to participate in this world. Unworthy I may be, but here's Chapter Three anyway._

* * *

Chapter Three

Harry tried to get as much sleep as he possibly could just to try and offset some of the alternate dimension transportation jet lag that had occurred the previous day. Eventually, his body refused to rest any longer and he crawled to his feet. He proceeded to cast a few beauty charms at himself in order to make himself presentable. A Clothes Unwrinkling Charm, a Breath Refreshing Charm, and a Scouring Charm hit him in quick succession. They were a quick fix for some of the grime that had built up from the night before.

Harry gritted his teeth as he felt sharp blades scraping the surface of his skin. There was a reason wizards and witches still bathed and showered regularly. The Scouring Charm was not an enjoyable experience, it was not as instant as it appeared. Although most of the cleaning was done instantly, the Charm lasted far longer than that on the object it was cast on. The Wizard who had created the spell wanted to make sure that any item scoured would remain clean for a short period of time, so had added a self-cleaning component to the spell. Harry had to actively make sure his Scouring Charm was weak, or he'd spend well over ten minutes feeling as if his skin was being scraped off. Unfortunately, the magic wasn't active enough to respond to a finite.

Satisfied that his appearance was as good as it was going to get, Harry Apparated out of the factory and back into the library. The night before, he had been able to spot a small corner in the library that looked like it saw very little foot traffic. He had realized then that it would be a good Apparition point for him in the future.

His appearance was only occupied by a small popping sound; quiet enough not to attract any unwanted attention. He gave a quick glance around to make sure that he didn't shock anyone at his sudden appearance before casting a Disillusionment Charm upon himself. He eyed his work briefly. Once it met his approval, he rounded the corner and walked into the main section of the library where he and the group had sat down and talked the night before. He was being cautious for only one reason, and that was because he was aware that this was a school. He figured from the sun shining through the windows that it was during school hours, and he knew that technically he was trespassing. He could handle himself just fine if anyone were to discover this, but he would rather he didn't have to. Glancing around at the library, he realized that he didn't quite know where to look. He imagined that books on vampires, demons, and magic weren't located in plain view of the student body. Knowing where they weren't however, didn't tell him where they were. It was only a fraction of the size of the library at Hogwarts. However, after six years attending that school, he was sure he still hadn't seen portions of it.

His dilemma at not knowing where to look lasted only until he noticed Giles standing before a large old tome which rested upon a desk. He was sipping from a cup of tea and appeared lost in the book's words. Harry felt the urge to sneak up on the man for a harmless joke but thought better of it. Confirming that they were the only two in the room, Harry canceled his Disillusionment Charm.

"Morning," Harry said in what he thought was a soothing voice. Giles disagreed. His whole body jumped in fright and the cup of tea he was holding splashed all over the book he had just been enjoying.

Harry frowned. "Sorry," he apologized before making his way over to the desk.

Giles nodded his head with panic jerky movement as he looked around for anything to contain the mess. He gave up on finding anything suitable and instead grabbed some white blank papers and tried to soak up the large puddles of tea. Harry, feeling pity, waved his wand and all traces of the liquid disappeared. Giles looked up in shock before looking back down and studying the book intensely. Satisfied that no harm was done, he closed it and looked back up at Harry, "Fascinating."

Harry smiled, pleased that he could help. He gave Giles a shrewd look. "Do people here not need much sleep?" Harry joked. He knew he hadn't been gone terribly long, yet Giles was already up and about when it was clear he had previously been almost dead on his feet with exhaustion.

Giles let out a short chuckle. "The Hellmouth is very demanding," Giles explained with a smile, "it seems to try its hardest at not allowing us much sleep."

Harry nodded in understanding before glancing at the book that he nearly caused permanent damage to. It was in a script that he didn't understand. Giles recognized his confused look; he must have seen it countless of times upon the faces of the students here. He took pity on the Wizard.

"It's a book about The Old Ones. The beings that now call themselves The Powers That Be," Giles explained. Harry smiled at Giles's due diligence, easily imagining Hermione in The Hogwarts's Library doing the same thing.

"Checking up on me?" Harry smirked. Giles shrugged.

"It's an interesting story," he said without explaining himself further.

Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other with a frown. He did not like asking for help, especially not from near strangers, but he had no other choice. "I could use your help," he admitted.

Giles looked up in surprise but nodded, gesturing to the large table in the middle of the room. Harry waited for the man to take his preferred seat before sliding in across from him. "I am in the need of some components of a. . . magical nature," Harry explained hesitantly, trying to find the proper words to explain. "They would need to be organic, preferably from a magical creature of some sort. My world has dragons, phoenixes, and magical creatures of all kinds. Do you have anything like that here?" Harry asked with a glimmer of hope.

Giles frowned in thought for a moment. "Most being in our world are not magical in nature," Giles explained, "magic tends to be forced upon an individual or creature, causing them to become magical themselves." At seeing Harry's confusion, Giles continued, "We discovered an invisible girl once, but she wasn't born with the ability to become invisible. It took years of people ignoring her before she began to see herself as invisible, and even longer before magic eventually turned her invisible. It wasn't in her genes. Her parents didn't have the ability, and her children won't. Magic simply decided to make it so."

Harry frowned and tried to come up with a logical explanation of his own, "Perhaps she had a strong affinity for magic, and through willpower alone, she was able to turn herself invisible?"

Giles only shrugged. "Anything is possible, my theory is only a theory. Your theory is just as sound," he paused for a moment. "but what I'm trying to say is that besides some types of powerful demons, there aren't quite that many magical beings walking around that were born that way. Each magical being is unique rather than born into it because of its species. Usually, a being is created, for example, from a magical ritual or an accident. It would not be a simple thing trying to hunt something down. I hope that answers your question."

Harry's frown quickly turned into a grimace. It did answer his question, but it was not an answer he liked. He briefly thought of the possibility of collecting some hair samples from a demon to see if it was useable in a wand. However, Harry could safely assume that the kind of wand used with such an ingredient would not find him agreeable. It would most likely be attracted to a wand user with much darker intentions. Still, Harry filed the thought away; it wouldn't hurt to try. "What about magical spells?" Harry asked, returning to the conversation, "the ritual I stumbled upon last night seemed to have ingredients of some sort lying on the altar. Those weren't magical ingredients, from magical creatures?"

Giles shook his head, "No. Magical Spells in this world use many different components. Even ordinary household spices can be found in some spells, as well as ingredients from ordinary creatures. Newt Eyes, for example, can be extracted from any salamander in the world. It doesn't require a certain magical species."

Harry grimaced. That made no sense. He wasn't, however, going to claim that the man was a liar. Giles could simply be ill informed, or perhaps the worst option of all; he could be right. If he was right, then Harry's wand would be his only chance of helping in this world. If it broke or was lost, then Harry would be basically helpless. That itself didn't make any sense though. Why would The Powers bring him into this world if only one mistake would turn him into a worthless fighter? No. There had to be a way. That or The Powers had made a grave mistake.

"May I ask why you are asking these questions?" Giles asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. "Sorry. It's a trust thing," he apologized. Giles seemed to understand, for he neither smiled nor frowned in response. Harry felt like he could trust the group of teenagers that Giles seemed to have collected around him. They appeared far too honest and innocent to pull one over on him, but Giles was far from that. The other Brit, Wesley could not be trusted either. He had not even tried to hide the fact that he saw Harry as a threat. For all Harry knew, Giles saw the same thing, yet simply hid it better. Harry wasn't about to tell them that if they broke his wand he'd be just another helpless mortal with only a fraction of the power that he currently wielded. Harry wasn't too sure about Angel either. The Vampire had to be older than he appeared because of his Vampirism, but Harry wasn't sure just how old. He was also annoyingly stoic during the whole conversation the night before which meant he was a much harder person to read.

"Perhaps another time," Harry offered, extending an olive branch. Giles nodded, recognizing the offer for what it was. "Do you have some of these magical ingredients that you use?" Harry asked, his interest mounting and a suspicion nagging at him. Giles gave him a curious glance, probably trying to figure out what he was aiming for, but respected his privacy and instead just nodded. He got up from the table.

"Follow me," he said. They walked into an office on the side of the library. Giles took a key from a drawer and walked towards a large cabinet on the far side. Opening it, he gestured for Harry to help himself and stepped aside. Harry walked up to the cabinet and took a look inside. Giles hadn't been lying. He could see things that no one would ever assume could be used in a magic ritual. Things like salt, rosemary, bird feathers, and a collection of other objects that looked quite plain to Harry. Harry wasn't even sure how a magical ritual could even be possible while only using the ingredients inside. Harry dragged his hand across the ingredients, absently trying to figure out how any of this could be possible. As he was about to step back in defeat, he felt a pull on his magic. It was very faint. If he hadn't been so focused on the objects, he probably wouldn't have even noticed it. He pulled out the offending ingredient. It was a bag of feathers with a few of them sticking out at odd angles. Harry turned around and gestured the bag towards Giles.

"May I?" Harry asked. Giles nodded with keen interest. Harry knelt down to his knees and spilled the bag's contents, watching feathers of different kinds fall to the floor. Again, he used his hand to feel around, touching each feather separately. It was in the middle of the pile that he felt it again, a very small reaction, almost as if he was touching a wand that wasn't meant for him to use. He frowned, grabbing the offending feather. He held it up to Giles with a questioning look.

"It's a hawk of some kind," Giles explained. "It looks to be one of a decent age, judging from the size . . ." Giles reasoned as he trailed off. Harry frowned as he stared at the feather. It shouldn't be possible. The feather would have to have some magical properties in order to get any sort of reaction from his magic. The only thing that made sense was that perhaps the hawk was cursed or infected somehow when it lost its feather, and Harry was reacting to that residual magic. Harry placed the feather to the side and went through the rest of the pile, finding two more feathers that gave him the same sort of small pull. They were both from a different species of bird, which confused him greatly. Harry looked up and took pity on Giles and his evident confusion.

"These feathers are magical," Harry stated plainly, looking at the rest of the feathers in thought, "which makes me believe the rest may be too."

"You can't tell?" Giles asked in confusion.

Harry shook his head, "No, it doesn't work like that. The only reason I can tell with these three feathers is because my magic seems to have a small affinity for them." He frowned as he looked at the feathers in his hand, "I'm not sure why I only reacted to these though. Perhaps the age of the animal increases its magic? It's possible these feathers came from an older bird."

They all appeared to all be on the larger side, but Harry couldn't be sure. He, however, saw other large feathers that he didn't feel anything for, which only made Harry's confusion grow. "This makes no sense," Harry stated plainly.

This brought a laugh out of Giles, "Welcome to The Hellmouth Harry."

Harry gave him a grimace in response but eventually let up with a small smile. Although Harry didn't understand it, it appeared that this world did have magical components that could help him produce a wand. This meant Harry wasn't as helpless as he originally thought. Still, he had a lot of work to do. These feathers didn't have nearly a strong enough pull on his magic to be worth using in a wand. "Does this town have a shop where I could find more ingredients like this?" Harry asked before trying to be specific, "that is, organic materials from animals."

Giles seemed to understand and scribbled something on a piece of paper he ripped from his desk. He handed it to Harry. It read Uncle Bob's Magic Cabinet with an address on Maple Court. Harry nodded in thanks before frowning.

"Erm. Do you have a map?" Harry asked sheepishly. He did not remember passing a street with that name as they drove from the factory to the library. Giles smiled and nodded. He brought out a map from a drawer in his desk, pointing out where the school was, and where Maple Court was located. Harry thanked him and magically copied the map and folded the duplicate up, only briefly noting Giles's curious glance at Harry's casual use of his magical abilities. Abilities that Giles had previously thought to be impossible.

"Would you like to use my car?" Giles asked, extending his own olive branch.

"Never learned to drive," Harry explained with a blush. Giles nodded in understanding. In big cities, it was quite common for people to never bother learning to drive. He never expected that Harry's short distance Apparition could also be used to travel long distances, but why would he?

Harry thanked the man a second time and said goodbye, choosing to walk out of the library instead of Apparate. The magic shop was closer to the school than the factory, and Harry didn't have anywhere else that he could safely Apparate to without potentially causing a lot of panic. So, Harry began the long walk to this magical shop, only remembering halfway there that he had no currency to buy anything. He shrugged to himself. He only needed to do research, purchasing something probably wouldn't even be necessary.

During his journey, he found himself randomly going down alleyways and other hidden, random crooks that seemed far out of the way from anything else. He must have looked crazy and lost to anyone who spotted the strange behavior. Only another wizard would understand what Harry was doing. He was looking for and finding places that he could Apparate into without spooking crowds of Muggles. Unless Harry wanted to do a lot of walking, he needed places throughout the town that he could use for Apparition. Harry wasn't sure how long it took for him to arrive at the magical shop, but it wasn't a short journey. His calves were burning from the walk, and Harry wasn't in terrible shape.

It was a small shop, about the size of Ollivander's Wand Shop. It didn't look terribly busy either; in fact, it was almost deserted. Harry walked into the shop, not quite knowing what to expect, but he was pleased with what he saw. There were sections of books as well as from what Harry could see, shelves upon shelves of ingredients for spells. Harry noticed quickly that the front of the store seemed to hold quite a bit of novelty items and books aimed directly at tourists or beginners. However, as Harry walked deeper into the store, the magic contained seemed to become more genuine. Some of the more gruesome body parts required for this world's magic rituals were also located at the back. Harry thought it was smart not to scare away potential new customers with their rather large collection of jars containing eyeballs.

"Can I help you?" asked an older gentleman who sat behind the counter. He appeared to be in his fifties. He was of short stature and slightly overweight. Harry nodded.

"May I handle the ingredients?" Harry asked politely, gesturing to the countless of objects resting on the shelves. He knew that what he needed to do in that store would require him to do so, but he didn't want to take any unwanted liberties while in sight of the owner.

"Of course, just don't break anything. You break it you . . ." the man said, leaving the common phrase hanging. Harry nodded, choosing not to inform him that he wouldn't even be able to afford the cheapest of products. Soon after, Harry found himself standing in front a large section of loose ingredients. Along with animal feathers, there was fur and hair of all kinds from different animals, including even the appendages of a few unfortunate small creatures. This section was the most interesting to Harry. Most of the wand cores that were easier to handle and work with came from the external portions of a magical creature. Whiskers, hairs, and feathers were used far more commonly than an organ of some sort. In fact, Dragon Heartstrings were the only internal organ that Harry could remember being used in the various wand cores that he had encountered. Harry briefly wondered why that was, but brought himself back to the task at hand.

Using his hand as he did with Giles, he slowly glided it across the many items. The same thing happened now as before and virtually nothing stood out to Harry. He frowned, unhappy with the results. Soon, he found something unexpected when he came across two sections of bird feathers. One shelf held feathers of all sorts, Harry didn't bother to count how many. The next shelf held what looked to be similar looking feathers. There didn't seem to be a reason to separate the two piles. While one pile of feathers reacted the same as the bundle Harry found with Giles, the other pile was different. Harry could feel his magic reacting with almost every single feather and some with a much larger reaction than he had felt before. The difference was huge, far too noticeable to be a mere coincidence.

"Could you tell me the difference between these two sections of bird feathers?" Harry asked, hoping the answer would make things clearer. The man frowned before stepping forward to take another look. His frowned remained for a moment before seeming to remember something.

"Ahh yes," the man said, gesturing to the feathers that gave Harry a reaction. "Those were collected from local birds," he explained with a humorous smile on his face. "Some of my customers seem to prefer locally produced goods. Says they've been getting better results." the man shook his head before shrugging, "It lets me charge more, so I don't bother arguing." He finished. Harry thanked the man and turned back to the shelf. He frowned in thought for a moment before reorganizing the feathers on the shelf into sections. Although he knew next to nothing about the species of various birds on the shelf, some of the feathers were clearly from the same species. He did his best guess work and tried to keep feathers from the same species together. Unfortunately, no real pattern began to emerge. Some small feathers from small birds would give him just as strong of a reaction as a larger bird, and different feathers from the same species of bird would give him different results. There was no noticeable correlation between the size of the bird and the strength of the magic. Could it be the age of the bird that truly mattered?

Because of the fact that local bird feathers produced a much stronger reaction for Harry, it was likely that whatever was causing an increase in an animal's magical properties was concentrated more heavily around Sunnydale. However, magic was a worldwide practice in this world. It wasn't something only practiced in certain cities, or towns. Nor was it something only practiced in Sunnydale. This led Harry to believe that although magic had spread worldwide, it had a place of origin. Birds located around Sunnydale had feathers that contained stronger magic. Connecting the two together would mean that Sunnydale, or perhaps more accurately, the Hellmouth held an explanation on how magic worked in this world. One conclusion Harry could make was that Sunnydale was a source of magic. Another was that perhaps it drew magic in like a vacuum, causing an increase in potency. There could be another reason entirely, but Harry figured either one of those two possibilities was a safe bet.

Harry looked towards the other objects that he had received no magical responses from. He couldn't assume that they too weren't saturated with various amounts of magic, it was just safe to assume that Harry's magic hadn't reacted to it in any way. It wasn't as if he was a magic detector. An item with the most amount of magic could be sitting right in front of him, yet his magic could instead reach out to another item with only a fraction of the first. His magic only reacted to magical components that would make a good wand match. Harry spent plenty of his Wizarding years handling magical ingredients without feeling even a fraction of the reaction that some of these feathers were giving him.

It was rare to have a reaction at all when brewing because potion ingredients were chosen specifically because of their limited reaction to wizards and witches. If you wanted to try and craft a potion using a Phoenix Feather, for example, you had to make sure your magic wasn't going to respond to it. Otherwise, you could have an exploding cauldron on your hands. Your magic would quickly disrupt the balance of the potion because the Phoenix Feather would become more potent. It was also why even some Master Potion Brewers had trouble crafting specific potions. They either had to use less of a specific ingredient, or they had to find something with similar properties that didn't cause their magic to flare up in unexpected ways. Harry had reasoned that this was also one of the reasons Neville had such a hard time brewing in his younger years. His magic was actively rejecting his father's wand, and was instead searching desperately for a compatible match. This sporadic and rebelling magic might have been causing potion ingredients to react to each other in unintended ways. Once Neville bought a wand that didn't refuse to work for him, his potion work had improved immensely. At least when Snape wasn't breathing down his neck.

It was quite clear to Harry that he was going to have to look for the feather of a bird to incorporate into his wand or staff making. So far it was the only species of creature that he found himself responding to. It also meant that Harry would have to be careful using any type of bird feather if he decided to try and figure out what he could brew in this world.

Deciding on the next course of action, Harry thanked the shopkeeper and promised to return in the near future. The man seemed disappointed that Harry hadn't purchased anything but he remained courteous on Harry's way out of the store. Once he had created some distance between himself and the shop, he found the closest hidden alley and Apparated back to the library. He knew immediately that he wasn't alone this time, for he heard voices coming from below. Harry rounded the corner and heard only the last bit of conversation.

"What did he want with a bunch of bird feathers?" Willow asked with interest to Giles. Willow, Xander, Buffy, and Oz were sitting around the table looking towards Giles, who was standing on the opposite side of the room with a new cup of tea in his hand. Giles noticed his entrance immediately.

"Perhaps you should ask him," he said plainly, taking a sip of tea. Buffy noticed him soon after but seemed surprised.

"I didn't hear you come in," Buffy stated. Harry supposed she thought he had used the door. He merely shrugged in response. Willow spun around in her chair.

"So? What 'did' you need them for?" Willow asked excitedly, not even attempting to hide her interest. Harry smiled at the second reminder in the last twenty-four hours of his friend Hermione. Harry walked over to the table and sat down.

"It's a secret," he said mysteriously. Willow looked ready to protest but Harry continued, "I do need help though."

"Really?" she asked, noticeably perking up.

Harry nodded, "I need to find a bird that has lived a very long time, in or near Sunnydale. Preferably many birds, of various sizes."

The room was quiet for a minute in awkward silence before Oz broke the silence, "Well, it's not the strangest thing we've ever been asked to look into." There were a few chuckles for those in the know.

"Might not even make the top ten," Xander joked while leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on the table.

"Xander," Giles warned, narrowing his eyes at Xander's feet. Xander simply smiled and sat up, removing his dirty shoes from the table. It looked like a well-practiced motion to Harry. He wondered just how many times Giles had asked Xander to remove his feet, and just how often Xander did it only to provoke the older man.

"Why do you need an old bird's feather?" Buffy asked, repeating the earlier question that Harry had previously avoided.

Harry frowned. "If everything works out, I can tell you, but until then I can't. Sorry," Harry apologized. Buffy pursed her lips and leaned forward, folding her arms across her chest.

"Then we can't help you." she said stubbornly.

"We can't?" Willow asked, disappointed.

"Buffy," Giles scolded.

"We don't know anything about him. Perhaps he needs this feather for something evil. We don't know," Buffy said, remaining firm and defended herself.

"An evil ritual only requiring a bird feather?" Harry asked specifically, "I can find the information on my own, but I figured it would go faster working together."

"You could try the zoo," Xander commented offhand.

"Xander!" Buffy scolded.

"Sorry."

Giles rubbed his nose. "You're being ridiculous Buffy."

Buffy realized that herself but refused to back down, "he doesn't trust us, why should we trust him?"

"I have a reason not to trust you," Harry answered immediately. That got everyone's attention.

"Pardon?" Giles asked. Harry sighed.

"Your friend. Wesley," Harry explained. There were a few snorts. "As far as I can tell, if he had it his way, I'd be locked somewhere in a dark basement with no escape."

"He's not a friend," Buffy said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "If he's not a friend, then why is he here? Is he an Ally?" Harry asked, genuinely curious now.

"He's Buffy's Watcher," Giles answered after a moment. Buffy didn't seem to agree but remained quiet. At Harry's confusion, Giles explained. Watchers were part of a council that existed since the first Vampire Slayer's existence, and possibly longer. Each Vampire Slayer was given a Watcher to guide her in her fight against all sorts of evil. Apparently, Giles had once been her Watcher but was fired by The Council. Giles had refused to abandon his Slayer, but she now had to answer to Wesley.

Harry nodded his thanks, but that didn't really change anything. "So the person who was pretty adamant that he didn't want my help and was afraid of my abilities is your guide, and technically your superior?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, "that doesn't make me feel better."

"He has a point," Oz stated helpfully.

"Fine," Buffy said, finally relenting. Almost as soon as the word left her mouth, Willow leaped up and sprinted to a computer. Harry raised an eyebrow at the energetic teen.

"Nothing but the temptations of magic and research could cause our Willow to move so fast," Oz stated dryly with an affectionate smile.

"A computer?" Harry asked skeptically, trying not to come too close to the object.

Buffy seemed to notice his hesitation and laughed, "What's with British men and computers?"

Harry looked at Giles who shrugged before he too eyed the computer warily, Harry smiled. "More like Wizards and computers," Harry corrected. That earned him the attention of Willow who paused in her typing. "My magic doesn't like electronics. The more complex the electronic, the worse it is. I wouldn't break anything by just being near it, but I try not to tempt fate on things that I can't afford to replace."

"I appreciate that," Giles said.

"You couldn't have a computer in your house?" Willow asked.

Harry shook his head, "My home would contain wards." Harry paused for a second in order rephrase at their blank looks, "Protection spells. They would encompass the whole house and any components inside. A computer wouldn't last long. I could use a computer in a room without wards, but I wouldn't want to cast anything while near it. However, Magic is such a natural part of my life, that I would no doubt accidentally fry it within a week."

"A life without electricity," Buffy said thoughtfully before she cringed, "No thanks."

Harry decided not to explain that magic could replace or surpass electricity in almost every possible way.

"What you asked for isn't that hard." Willow started to explain as she continued to type, "Xander was right, the zoo would be the best place to find animals that have lived in Sunnydale for a long time. Some were even born there, and the zoo was established 60 years ago." Willow paused as she read off of the computer screen, moving her lips slightly as she mouthed some of the words. "They have species of birds that don't normally exist in this part of the world, and that have very long lifespans," she paused for a second and frowned, "but you probably have to take a trip there to find out yourself. Their website isn't very good, and it would be hard to find specific dates and birds on here."

"Are they open?" Harry asked. She read something off of the screen.

"Uh . . . yeah, until five," she said before looking up, "are you going to head there now?"

"I'd rather wait until they weren't open," Harry said truthfully.

Willow frowned. "You aren't going to kill any of the birds, are you?" Willow asked worriedly, "sacrifice them?"

Harry curled his lip in disgust, "No, never."

She relaxed, "Okay good."

Harry frowned for a moment as he remembered where he was. He would be cutting it pretty close to when things started coming out to prey on the few people stupid enough to be caught alone after dark. He knew he could handle himself, but the thought of being sneaked up on, pushed to the ground and hearing his wand snap was not pleasant. If everything went according to plan that night, he wouldn't have to worry about that ever again.

"Now that I think about it," Harry said, turning slightly red. "I wouldn't mind a ride and perhaps an escort," he said with a pointed look towards Buffy.

She nodded. "Alright. But I'm coming more to protect those birds than you," she said it with a straight face, but Harry could see the amusement in her eyes.

"I'll drive," Oz offered.

Willow perked up, "I want to come."

Xander yawned, "Road trip?"

Harry was happy that the group all seemed interested in joining him. It was unlikely that a lone creature would try and attack a whole group of teenagers. As he thought about when the best time to make the trip would be, a thought occurred to him and he looked around confused. "Don't you guys have classes?" Harry asked, wondering why the students were hanging out in a library during school hours.

Willow's face turned red and she quickly grabbed her backpack before running out the library. Xander and Buffy swore before doing the same. Harry laughed and looked at Oz, who was watching his friends retreat in amusement. "Free period," he explained.

Giles, who had been silent for awhile now spoke up, "Perhaps you want to come back later?"

"I was hoping to read for a bit," Harry said. "any suggestions for someone who'd rather know what's about to try to kill him?"

Giles looked delighted at the question and wandered off into the aisle upon aisles of books. He came back with three large tomes. "These should be a decent start," he said with a bright smile. Harry groaned as he grabbed the first large book. The title, Vampyr was written in large bold letters. Harry opened it and began to read.


	4. Chapter Four : Albus

_Author Notes - Thanks for all the reviews last chapter. Each one was appreciated._

 _Onward..._

* * *

Chapter Four

Hours later, Harry found himself in the back of a large van heading to the Sunnydale Zoo. He had decided to wait until much later before beginning his mission because he hadn't wanted the Zoo's staff to get in his way. Apparently, the Zoo did not have any overnight security guards. So if Harry and the others arrived late enough, the place would be deserted.

Oz and Willow were sitting in the front of the van while Angel, Buffy, Xander, and Harry were crammed in the back. Unlike the last time Harry traveled with the group, Buffy and Angel were not sitting on either side of him but had chosen to give him some space, and in doing so a little bit of trust.

Harry had spent most of the morning, afternoon, and evening reading the pile of books that only seemed to grow as Giles thought of more and more valuable reading material for him. The first book, a large tome about vampires, was an interesting read. It started explaining their origins as a hybrid creature from the union of a demon and a human. The offspring had the ability to produce more of its kind with a simple transfer of blood. There was still speculation on whether the transfer of blood would create the vampire, or just allow a demon from another plane the opening to possess the body of the once human. Harry didn't know enough to form an opinion of his own on the matter but either way, it didn't change the fact that vampires seemed to be inherently evil.

Harry knew that people had the tendency to label anything dissimilar to themselves as evil, regardless of their true nature. Many witches and wizards would argue that all werewolves were evil and deserved a quick and ruthless death. The fact that Angel was a vampire himself, and had unequivocally said that all vampires except for himself were soulless and irredeemable did help Harry get used to the idea of a kill first ask questions later mentality that seemed to be required when dealing with the demons of this world.

The book, after explaining the origins of the race, began to go into a rather detailed history of some of the more famous vampires in existence. Harry tried to remember many of the names in case he ran into one of these stronger than normal vampires, but he knew he wouldn't be able to name them all. The book went into a brief summary of a uniquely vicious vampire nicknamed the Scourge of Europe, but more commonly referred to as simply Angelus. He had plagued all of Europe until his sudden disappearance. The name, Angelus was referring to his face, which was described as being angelic.

Harry stared at Angel for a moment. Harry could tell that the man was attractive, but he would have trouble describing it as angelic. However, it was far too much of a coincidence, and Harry finished the book with the assumption that Angel and Angelus were one in the same.

The details of the book made Harry further trust that Angel was being honest about his reformed ways. Harry didn't think the Angelus described in the book would be able to go a hundred years without being caught bathing in the blood of his innocent victims just because he decided to play the role of a nice vampire. Angel must have received a very pure soul in order for him to remember the countless horrors that he had done and yet still refused to drink human blood or go back to his old ways. Harry could easily imagine someone trying to ignore a developing conscience, especially after doing such horrific things for so long. There were humans with perfectly good souls that would find joy in some of Angelus's actions, yet Angel only found horror. Harry was actually quite surprised that only Buffy seemed to find the strength in that. The rest of the group looked at Angel with more distrust than respect. Harry supposed Buffy just had an easier time than the others at forgiving the face that had done such evil things.

The last section of the vampire book was both the most useful and least useful part. It went through all the different ways to fight against vampires. The guide had separate sections for humans and vampire slayers because of the tools and strategies suggested varied depending on the strength and abilities of the user. Because of that, the book was virtually useless to Harry. It was nice to know that holy water and crucifixes could repel some vampires, but they were also the least liable to work. Many older vampires could ignore a crucifix and heal quickly from the burns of Holy Water. It appeared that the best way for a human to live through a vampire attack was to get into a home that had not invited them in and get into it as quickly as possible. That, or to form a decent sized mob to overwhelm the vampire with force in numbers. Mobs with pitchforks were the only tools that humans had to fight off vampire attacks for centuries.

Like Harry had originally assumed, decapitation worked fine when dealing with vampires, as well a complete dismemberment, fire, and a stake through the heart. Harry didn't know of any good fire spells. The Fire-Making Spell, also known as Incendio produced a decent amount of fire, but it was more of a flashbang than a steady stream. Unless the vampire was walking around in a heavily flammable garment or had previously rolled around in a flammable substance, then it would merely annoy the vampire with a small targeted flame rather than set his whole body on fire. Fiendfyre could be used to take down hundreds of vampires at once in a controlled area, but trying to use it in an open area with other people would be homicidal. You were also likely to get yourself killed in the process. It would be more of a last-resort option. No, during his Auror training, fire based offensive magic really wasn't touched upon. He knew that he knew enough magical theory to perhaps invent something given enough time. However, in the meantime, he would need another method of attack.

Harry wondered how much blunt force trauma was required to bring a vampire down because that seemed to be Harry's best bet. The book had stated that they, like all demons, had some magical spell resistance. A spell that would mortally wound a human, might instead such give a vampire a shallow scratch. How much would a Bombarda Maxima spell do to a vampire for example? Harry almost wished he had one to test it on. Harry began to think that Transfiguration might be his best friend in this world. Conjuring a blade and banishing it at a vampire's neck would be considered a magical attack, but a vampire's magical resistance wouldn't matter if the blade being banished was of solid mass. Banishing a stake of some sort probably wouldn't be ideal, however. The heart and the stake were both relatively small objects. Harry would more than likely miss the heart, and possibly even the vampire himself. It was, however, something to practice with for the future.

The van ride to the zoo continued with Harry being oddly silent, thinking about ways to kill or trap a vampire with his magic. Unknowingly to Harry, his thoughts were using Angel as a visual aid. Glancing at his neck or chest area when picturing ways to kill a vampire. These looks did not remain unnoticed by the two fighters of the group, and Angel had even started to fidget at the strange intense glances.

"Welcome to the Sunnydale Zoo," Oz exclaimed suddenly in a dry manner as the van rolled to a stop, "please exit the vehicle in the same organized manner that you entered it."

Harry took out his wand, glanced out of the van window and Apparated. The van was a little too crowded and Harry didn't feel like waiting for his turn while trapped in the stationary vehicle. One by one his companions jumped out of the vehicle, with Oz being the last one to leave. Willow quickly walked up to Harry.

"How far can someone teleport?" Willow asked excitedly, yet quietly. She seemed to know not to attract any unwanted attention. Harry smiled at her. He had expected this to be one of her first questions the night before, but her sleep deprivation must have overwhelmed her interest in magic.

"Depends on the user," Harry answered honestly. Willow raised an eyebrow as if to say that there was only one user she cared about.

"I haven't found my limit," Harry admitted.

She frowned. "Aren't you curious? I would spend all day just teleporting around until I knew," she confessed. Harry chuckled as he pictured her doing that very thing. Apparating across the country hundreds of times just to find the distance in which she started Splinching herself.

Chuckling one last time in amusement, Harry began walking to the gate of the zoo. It was a standard gate, far shorter than he expected, and he imagined he could simply climb over it if he needed to. Harry checked the handle and was surprised to see it swing open. Apparently, the Zoo was even more relaxed in their security than the gang had even guessed.

"Anyone know where the birds are?" Harry asked as they all gathered at the entrance.

"The Aviary is in the center," Willow answered after Harry received shrugs from everyone else. Willow led the way while Buffy walked alongside her. Angel hung around the back, completing a standard formation for escorting someone. Harry noticed they never even exchanged words to make it happen. It was merely instinctive. He could hear Buffy and Willow chatting about nonsensical things, but Harry could also see that Buffy's attention was never fully in the conversation. Her eyes would dart around corners and into the distance very regularly.

It was only a short walk before they came upon a building with a large dome protruding from the top; the dome was built almost completely out of glass. Even at night with no visible light sources, Harry could see movement from within; probably birds flying from tree to tree. The building was locked, and before Harry could offer to unlock it, Buffy grabbed and yanked the lock loose, giving Harry his first glimpse at what a vampire's strength would be capable of doing. She held the door open for Harry with a smug look on her face in response to Harry's widening eyes at the display.

"After you," she said. Harry didn't have the heart to tell her that the brute force had been completely unnecessary.

Harry didn't need to enter the large dome portion of the Aviary itself to know that those wouldn't be the birds he was looking for. There were plaques everywhere detailing the species of birds available for viewing with the life expectancy of each species listed. None of which were all that impressive.

"Over here," Angel said from the other side of the building. Harry walked around the dome and over to where Angel had called from. That's when he saw the large individual cages holding what the Zoo considered their prime specimens. Most of them were birds of a larger size, yet some small colorful birds were among the selection. Each of them had names and their ages listed.

"This is the oldest one," Willow said, pointing to a cage containing some kind of parrot. Harry read the plaque. It was a cockatoo named Jack and it was sixty-three years old. It was a regal looking bird with a yellow mohawk. It was still asleep on its perch as if it didn't quite give a damn that there were people looking at it in the middle of the night. Reading it further, Harry sighed. The bird was only recently transferred from another zoo farther south. This bird wouldn't be what he was looking for. Still, he noticed that the display case had a loose feather pressed under a section of glass in order for the customers to have a closer view. Harry vanished the glass and picked the feather up. He frowned as he felt nothing special about it; it was just another bird feather to him. He put the feather back and encased it in the glass once more before moving on.

He went from cage to cage, trying to find what he was looking for. There were plenty of birds there. Some were too young, and some, like Jack, had only recently transferred there from another Zoo. Most of the birds had a sample of its own feather on display like Jack had, and Harry made sure to test each one. Each one was a disappointment. There was either no reaction or a reaction similar to what he found at the Magic Shop.

However, after a good ten minutes, he finally found what he had been looking for. Sitting in a large cage was a beautiful large white bird with black feathers on its wings and a pink beak. The plaque said it was a Southern Royal Albatross. It weighed twenty-five pounds and was wide awake, staring at him. Harry's heart stopped when he saw the bird's name. Albus. Harry continued to stare at the plaque in shock for a moment before shaking his head. Harry didn't believe in coincidences but he quickly decided that he'd have to let this one go before he lost his mind at the possible implications.

Further to the side was a large white feather contained beneath a layer of glass, the same as all the other cages. Inexplicably nervous, Harry quickly vanished the glass and carefully picked the feather up. Harry could feel his magic reacting to it almost immediately and smiled. He could still remember that feeling, almost eight years ago when his Holly Phoenix Wand was first given to him. The reaction was very similar, and Harry let out a pleased sigh as he lost himself in the feeling of the magic and the relief of having such a viable option suddenly open up to him. It took a minute before he was able to refocus his attention to the information displayed about the bird.

Albus was fifty-five years old, and was delivered to the Sunnydale Zoo fifty-four years ago; merely six years after they opened. It was the longest living resident at the Zoo. Its caretakers were not expecting it to live much longer.

"You just needed a feather?" Buffy asked skeptically from behind his right shoulder. He jumped as he remembered that he wasn't alone before answering with a shake of his head.

"I need as many feathers I can get without hurting the bird," he explained while thinking of the best way to do that. One feather wouldn't be nearly enough.

"Well," Xander began while pointing at various places within the cage, "It looks like the bird is quite the shedder."

Harry noticed it too. Throughout the cage, there were quite a few loose feathers. It appeared that Albus's caretakers hadn't cleaned out his cage in a while. Deciding on a course of action, Harry walked to the corner of the cage.

Before he could do anything else, Albus stood up and fully extended his wings. He stared directly at Harry as he shook himself. Harry watched as another feather sprung loose and slowly drifted down before settling at the bottom of the cage.

"Spooky," Buffy whispered as she stepped back, creating some distance between her and the bird. Harry agreed but reasoned it was probably normal bird behavior. This conclusion, however, didn't stop the goosebumps from spreading across his arms. Harry touched his wand to the surface of the cage and closed his eyes. He brought forth images of the many feathers that he could see in the cage to his mind while making sure not to think of the bird itself.

"Accio," he whispered while moving his wand in a half circle. He tried to keep the spell underpowered in order to not harm or scare the bird. The feathers began to move towards the corner of Albus's cage. They jerked out of their resting spots quickly at first before slowing down and floating softly to the corner Harry was standing at. There were more feathers than he had originally thought. By the time all feathers wormed themselves out from hidden crooks and dirt, Harry counted about twenty of them. When they were all finally resting against the cage, Harry canceled the spell and looked up to see five identical looks of awe.

Getting back to work, Harry vanished the corner of the cage before grabbing the large collection of feathers gently, being careful not to bend them. He then repaired the cage once more; leaving it as it was. He could feel the feathers tingling in his hand as he gently placed them in a conjured bag before tucking it into his trouser pocket.

"Alright," Harry said, "let's go." The others nodded and made their way back to the bus. Harry picked up the crushed lock that Buffy had ripped apart and repaired it, locking the door behind them. Buffy frowned at him. "I'd rather they don't increase security." Harry reasoned. It was possible that the feathers he grabbed wouldn't be enough and he'd have to come back for more. Harry knew he left other things out of place, but he hoped the staff would reason that one of their visitors from the day before had stolen the feather that was encased in glass.

They made their way back into Oz's van without any further excitement. As Oz shifted the van into gear and took off, Xander released a heavy breath.

"Alright there Xander?" Buffy asked with a knowing smile. Xander nodded and Harry gave him a questioning look.

"There was this Hyena thing a couple years ago," Xander explained before shivering in memory.

Harry accepted the answer before losing himself in thought. He was half tempted to Apparate ahead of everyone else but figured it would have been rather rude to save himself the trip back when they had only made the journey to help him. He slipped his hand into his pocket, feeling around for the bundle of feathers to make sure that they were still there. Their initial reaction had dimmed considerably, but what remained was still a sensation of comfort that he could feel down to his bones. It was similar to the feeling he'd get from his wand. Harry knew this was normal. If you felt the same thing every time you picked up your wand as you did the first time, it would be hard to cast any spell without first becoming lost in the pleasure. Still, he knew that each one of the feathers in his pocket contained the potential for a wand just as strong as the wand currently sitting in the hostler on his wrist.

He, however, couldn't for the life of him explain just how it was possible that an ordinary animal had so much magic in its feathers. It appeared that there was a lot of potential in the magic of this world and he had a lot to learn.

* * *

They found their way back to the school quickly enough. Harry was just about to offer them his thanks and leave; far too excited to start working on his staff, when a strong overwhelming scent of food hit him. His mouth began to water and his stomach started to growl.

"Hungry much?" Buffy quipped with a glance at him. Harry shrugged with embarrassment as the rumbling grew louder. He realized he hadn't eaten all day.

The sight that greeted them was interesting, to say the least. A dark-haired girl with tight-fitting clothing was attacking Wesley. Wesley was equipped with pads on almost his whole body, yet, even with the added protection, each swing of the girl's fists would cause Wesley to wince as if his whole body expected immediate pain.

"Hey, gang," the girl said with a cheery smile before she left Wesley and skipped over to the table where small white containers rested. She grabbed a fork and shoveled something into her mouth that looked remarkably like pasta before she headed back to her Watcher.

"Chinese food?" Xander asked in excitement, making his way over to the table. He saw the meager two box offering and frowned.

"Don't you dare," the girl said with a warning glance before aiming a kick at Wesley's shin. Wesley let out a little squeak as her foot impacted her target with a loud thwack.

"Come on Faith," Xander whined, "didn't anyone ever tell you to share?"

"A Slayer needs her energy," Faith began in explanation, "For dusting vamps and other late night activities." She gave Xander a suggestive wink and chuckled harshly when he turned red.

So, this was the other Slayer, Harry realized. She was almost night to Buffy's day. Or at least, that was the initial impression he got from her. Harry walked up to the table, his own interest lying there. "Ooh," she exclaimed as she noticed his approach along with the rest of the group. "Wes told me about the magician, but he never mentioned how delicious you were," she said with a look far more suggestive than the one she had given Xander while her eyes roamed his torso.

Harry gave her an unimpressed stare. "Thanks," he responded politely.

She frowned and huffed in response. "No fun," she pouted before returning to her previous action of pummeling Wesley. Every cringe he showed only seemed to amuse her.

Harry peeked inside one of the boxes in order to get a better look. He took out his wand and waved it at the table. The white boxes and utensils multiplied ten times to the surprise and delight of Xander. Harry noticed that Faith was eyeing him closely as though she was trying to gauge his threat level. Harry put the wand back into the safety of its hostler. Still, she didn't take her eyes off of him, which had the result of unnerving him more than he would have admitted to out loud.

"I like you," Xander informed him as he grabbed a couple of boxes from the new stockpile of food.

"Did you just create food?" Willow asked, staring at the table in shock.

"Not quite," Harry answered as he took some food for himself in order to calm his stomach, which had let out another rumble in protest.

Giles came out from the side office after hearing the commotion and took one look at the table. "Interesting," he said before walking over and taking a seat for himself. "Is there any sort of limitation to this magic? Or can you create an infinite amount of duplicates? Could you fill up the room for example?" he asked. Harry noticed then that he had a pad and pen with him. Harry smiled at the man's inquisitive nature.

"Creating a duplicate requires some energy. Filling up a room with copies would be very tiring and probably require multiple casts," Harry explained, taking a bite of the strangely packaged food. It was better than he expected it to be but was a little cold. Harry waved his hand over the container to heat it up. Harry didn't bother to explain that there was a similar curse that duplicated the item with every touch.

"If I could just magic myself up some food, I don't know if I would ever stop eating," Xander said wisely as he looked at his container with love.

"Then it's a good thing you can't," Buffy said, grabbing some for herself before walking away to stand with Angel as they watched Faith work on The Wesley Draining Dummy.

"I can't conjure food from nothing," Harry corrected, "I can only duplicate what's there."

"But you can create other things," Giles said, correctly remembering bits from the night before, "what makes food so different?"

Harry frowned as he tried to figure out a way to explain it. Once again he was glad for the last year or so that he had spent as an Auror because he had used a large portion of his downtime trying to reestablish his magical education. He finally found words that would make sense to someone unfamiliar with magical theory. "Conjuration comes from the mind. I can Conjure up a living animal . . . let's say for an example, a dog. The dog would look like a dog and act like a dog, but if you cut it open, it would be obvious that it wasn't a dog. I would have to have advanced knowledge of the workings of biology to achieve such a thing, and even then, the Conjuration would also require a lot more effort and be more tiring. It's never worth doing," Harry said, pausing to see if Giles was following. Once Harry saw that he wasn't having a problem, he continued, "Food works the same way. I could create something that looked like food and tasted like food easily enough. However, in order to create something that would give me the same nutrition as food, I would need to understand every single ingredient and would have to keep all that information clearly focused on before creating it. The energy required to make it happen would probably be more than the food could even give me in return." After he finished explaining what he knew, he was happy to see that most of the group seemed to understand.

"What makes a duplicate so different?" Willow asked.

Harry smiled at the question, "Think of it as a blueprint. In my mind, I'm looking to copy, not create. My magic uses the original item as a blueprint to create a copy. A copy won't be as good, and will even deteriorate over time, but it's close enough to the original that it's hard to tell them apart. If the caster is proficient anyway."

"I can't tell the difference," Xander stated.

"Thank you," Harry smiled at the unattended compliment.

"So. . ." Xander said, pausing in thought, "you're telling me you could conjure up food that looked like food and tasted like food but wouldn't give you any of the calories or energy that food would give?"

"Umm? Yeah? With some practice," Harry said.

"I changed my mind," Buffy piped in with a jealous look at Harry, "I'd give up a lifetime of electricity for magic now."

"Yeah . . ." Willow said in awe. "Endless junk food nights without the calories," she said dreamily, seemingly lost in a fantasy. Harry shrugged. Not many people in the Wizarding World had such a relationship with food. Except perhaps for Ron when he was younger; but he had long grown out of it.

"Well," Faith said suddenly, "I'm out of here."

"Hold on a moment!" Wesley exclaimed, taking off his protective mask, "We aren't done yet! Where do you think you're going?"

"You made me all worked up Wes," Faith said with a smirk, "I'm going to go find someone to play with." Her teasing made Wesley's face turn red and she let out a smirk of satisfaction. She was out the door before Wesley could recover or respond.

"That was weird," Buffy observed as she peered at the doors that Faith just exited out of, "I thought Faith would be all over Harry. A new boy toy to play with."

"Did you just call me a boy toy?" Harry asked with a smirk.

Angel raised an eyebrow at her and Buffy grew slightly pale, "I only meant that . . . she would think that . . ." Buffy tried to find words but Willow interrupted her with a giggle; which earned her a heated glare from the blonde.

Giles decided to give Buffy mercy. "She has been isolating herself since the accident," Giles said, "We may just have to give her some time."

Harry remembered then that they had mentioned something about Faith accidentally killing an innocent man. Yes, Harry thought; It would take quite some time to recover from that. He didn't, however, think that letting her remain in her own mind for a long period of time was a very good idea. Harry knew from past experiences that when you were alone and isolating yourself, dark thoughts began quick and festered over time.

The room quieted down as everyone dug into their meal. All except for Angel, who seemed to use the peace and quiet to sit there and brood about one thing or another. Harry soon finished and stood up. "Well, I am off to see if I can do something with these," Harry said, gesturing to his pocket, which held his bag of feathers.

"And you'll let us know all about it if you're successful?" Giles asked.

"Of course," Harry answered. He could see Wesley's face pinch in anger which brought a smile to Harry's face. He gestured at the young Watcher while looking towards the rest. "Have fun with him," he said sarcastically.

He chose to Apparate just as Wesley opened his mouth to speak. No doubt to try and order Harry to tell him all of his secrets. Harry laughed to himself as he pictured Wesley berating the group for allowing Harry to keep things from them. He tried to feel bad, but he couldn't. Buffy and the others chose to take orders from this Council of theirs. Yet, besides giving Giles to Buffy as a guide, they seemed to have offered very little in ways to support them.

Harry appeared back in the factory and the first thing he did was check all of his wards to make sure they were still intact. It was probably an unnecessary gesture. Anyone who used brute force to get into the factory would have sprung the ward, alerting Harry instantly. It would take a witch or wizard of decent skill to dismantle his wards without first triggering them. Still, it was a habit that Harry had developed as an Auror, and it was a habit that he wasn't inclined to break; just in case someone in this world eventually figured out how to counter his magic.

Afterwards, he conjured up some candles around the factory before lighting them with magic. Harry would need as much light as he could for the upcoming task. Making a wand, or in this case, a staff was not a simple thing. A wizard couldn't simply collect any appropriate magical item along with any piece of wood and wave his wand around to create one.

Although it only took an incantation to infuse the two together, it required for more than that to create the wooden shaft of the wand. If you tried to use magic to form the shaft, you'd get two forces of magic fighting for control, rather than one working in harmony with the wooden vessel. Your own personal magic would become mixed into the wood, interrupting the infusion process.

There were many reasons that wood was the clear choice when it came to wand making. The first thing was that it was simply a natural conduit for magic. Magic flowed through it the same way electricity flowed through water. Wood didn't block, dilute or manipulate the magic in any way. Whatever flowed through a wooden object left it the same way it went in, and that was a necessity. The only case that this wasn't true was if you used magic to change the wood in some way. The magic residue would then cling to wood the same way it clung to anything else.

The second reason was that wood was good at bending, yet not breaking. A wand spent a majority of its use bending slightly during casting, as well as when being handled during its day to day use. A wand needed some flexibility, and wood offered that. The third reason that Harry was personally going to work with wood was the simple fact that it was all he knew how to work with at the moment, and he needed a backup weapon more than he needed to experiment with different materials.

His first task for the staff's creation would be finding a good source for the required wood. If he had to, he could explore the outside wooden area around the factory, but the easiest option available was the many broken wooden objects lying around the factory. If he was lucky there would be something just sitting around, waiting to be used. He didn't need to make sure the tree that the wood had originated from had grown in Sunnydale like he had to do with the feather. The wood part of a wand had no magic requirements, and the fact that wood was a conduit of magic led Harry to believe it wouldn't matter either way. Unrefined magic should, in theory, pass through the tree unhindered rather than be absorbed into it. If his theory held, it didn't matter where the tree aged, it wouldn't contain any magic; even in this world. If he was wrong and magic was indeed absorbed into the tree over time, then the creation of the staff would be a total failure. During the infusion process, the magic of the feather would fight and lose to the strong, stable magic of the wood.

Now he just needed to find the right variety of wood. During Harry's previous case of staff curiosity, he was able to learn a few important things that would make this process far easier. The first was the ability to identify many different kinds of wood. He had bought a few Muggle books for that purpose alone, and it took him quite awhile before he was comfortable in telling one wood from another.

The type of wood was almost as important as the type of core you used. Where a wand core was selected based on the reaction and compatibility with a wizard's magic, the wood of a wand was chosen based on the personality of the user itself. A wand user had many facets in personality, so a user could find many different kinds of wood that would work perfectly fine for them. Harry's own wand was made of Holly, which tended to choose users who were quick to anger and impulsive. Along with those who were engaged in some sort of personal or spiritual quest. These traits perfectly described him when he was a teenager. He had since grown as a person but most wands tended to be loyal. Once a wand chose a user, the wand's initial characterization tended to change and develop as the user did. Which was why that even once Harry had adjusted to life as an adult and many of those attributes had faded, his wand was still just as reliable now as the first day he held it. It usually took a quick change in attitude, ambitions, or behavior for a loyal wand to reject their user. Also, some wood types were less loyal than others and were more inclined to reject a user who had changed.

Although the general description of Holly described Harry's personality to perfection when he was eleven, he still could have easily found a wand with another type of wood. It was the Phoenix feather itself that held such a strong connection to Harry. If it had been contained within a wand of another wood type that fit Harry's personality even a little, then that wand would have chosen him all the same.

Thankfully, Harry had also long since memorized many of the user characteristics for the different wood types. He just had to hope those characteristics remained the same in this world. Deciding to get to work, Harry began to identify some of the wood scattered around the factory.

Elmwood; for users with a certain sort of presence and an air of elegance. Harry shook his head. That wouldn't work.

Chestnut; for people who have an affinity for magical creatures, Herbology and flying. One out of three wasn't too bad, but it would hardly be the perfect match.

Birch; Harry shivered. He didn't know much about the wood except for the fact that Dolores Umbridge had been quite proud of the fact that she had been selected by the relatively rare wood type. That alone would take it out of contention for Harry.

Cedar; for people with a strength of character and unwavering loyalty. Harry winced. This might have been strong for Harry once, but he had just left every single one of his friends in order to jump blindly into this world. A Cedar wood wand would no doubt figuratively turn its nose up at him.

Maple. Maple could work. Maple chose travelers and explorers, those who were ambitious in nature. Harry had just traveled to a whole new dimension, he couldn't imagine a bigger travel than that. Also, what he wanted more than anything at the moment was to prosper and excel in this world. His ambitious nature was currently at the forefront of his mind and desires. Maple wands were also one of the more loyal wood types. If Harry decided to settle down at a later date and stop exploring or traveling, the wand would accept it. Yes, Harry thought, this would work nicely.

Unlike the wand core itself, Harry wouldn't be able to run a test to see if it was compatible with him. His only option was to use the knowledge of his own personality in order to choose the best option available and then craft the wand and hope for the best. If Harry wasn't in a rush, he would have ignored the option of crafting a staff; for it wasn't all that reliable. However, crafting a staff to use would be a relatively simple process and would be a good safety net just in case something happened to his wand. Crafting a wand, however, would require a lot of failures before eventual success. The process of learning to craft a wand could come later; after he felt a little more secure with a backup weapon waiting for him.

Getting started, Harry used a Cutting Curse to cleave off a long piece of wood from a table made of Maple. He conjured a knife and began to carve. The first thing he did was carve off the side that had been hit with the Cutting Curse. The magic residue would still be there, attempting to interfere with the staff's potential. It was important that the wood from the staff wasn't exposed to any direct magic because it would interfere with the fusion of the magical core and the wood. Conjured tools, however, did not transfer magical residue, which was a blessing. Harry prepared himself for a long session with the blade as he began to carve the wood into the shape of a staff.

There was only one reason as to why a staff was easier to make than a wand. And that was that there wasn't much you could do wrong with a staff. They were large and bulky. The only skill involved was making sure the staff was straight for casting accurately. If you failed to do that, then you could always take a little more off in one area in order to fix your mistake in another. A wand, however, was much smaller and came to a point. Making a straight wand with the right amount of spring and length was a very difficult thing to do when all you had to work with was a carving knife. Harry wondered if he could hire someone to invent a machine that did this all for him. muggle machinery had come a long way since wizards first started handcrafting wands. He supposed it was likely. He would just have to find the money to fund the job first.

It was hours later that Harry was finally done. He quickly healed the blisters and small cuts that had been inflicted upon his poor hands during the carving process. He admired his finished project. It was a better-looking staff than his first attempt, all those months ago had been. It was straight, but with a curved area in the middle for the easy gripping of his second hand when using it for aiming spells. The top of the staff was shaped to fit into the palm of his hand. He had also conjured sandpaper in order to smooth out all of the rough edges; it almost glimmered in the light of the candles. Harry removed one of the feathers from his bag and placed it onto the staff which was resting on the floor. He pointed his wand at the two objects before moving his wand in three circles and then pulling it back and slashing it forward.

"Iuctimindo" He ordered loudly with his intent clear in his mind. The magic reacted instantly. Harry watched as the feather fell away into a fine dust that sprinkled down and quickly covered the staff. The two objects flashed brightly.

The only thing remaining appeared to be a simple, ordinary wooden staff but Harry knew better. Holstering his wand, he picked the staff up. The staff seemed to know that Harry already had a wand and refused to give him any sign of acceptance. Still, Harry could feel the calming effect it had on him.

He pointed the staff at the door that he had only just repaired the night before. "Bombarda!" Harry said, trying to throw as much of his will and power into the spell. The small explosion was slightly off target but still managed to tear the door off of its hinges with great force. The explosion was only a fraction smaller than what Harry could accomplish with his Holly Wand. The power was clearly there and that pleased him. He quickly repaired the door once more.

However, one more test was required, and that was finesse. Harry placed both of his hands on the top of the staff and tapped the floor with it. A large wood carving appeared. The carving was that of a life-sized shaggy dog. Harry knelt to the floor to inspect it. A life-like dog would have actually been simpler to conjure and less of a test. You learned a lot about an animal by just interacting with it. How a dog smelt, how it acted, how the fur felt in your fingers. All of these helped with the visual and concentration required to conjure an animal. Imagining a carved wooden object that you had never seen or interacted with before was much harder to get correctly. Those kinds of conjurations never tended to contain as much detail.

Harry squinted at the patterns in the fur. It too was similar to what Harry could have done with his wand. Harry let out the first genuine laugh since coming to this world. He wasn't feeling humorous really. It was a laugh of pure relief. As long as he kept spare staves, he would never be completely useless. Harry realized only then that the fear of losing his wand and his magical powers had been far stronger than any fear of death that he had experienced in the past. He clearly had strange priorities.

Harry took one last long look at the dog carving. "Goodbye Sirius." He whispered before vanishing it with another tap of the staff. Now that Harry was satisfied that the staff could be of use to Harry, he quickly found a spot to hide it for safe keeping. He knew that he wasn't done yet. One spare staff was hardly enough insurance. Harry had a rather large task in front of him. He needed to craft multiple wands and stash them in various locations. He needed the security blanket that it would provide. He realized with a grimace that this must have been how Voldemort felt about his Horcruxes. Voldemort did everything he could do to hide the objects preventing his death, and Harry would now do the same for objects that prevented his helplessness.

Harry was debating whether or not to begin his first attempt at a wand when his magic flashed with a warning from within his mind. Harry recognized the feeling immediately. His proximity ward had been breached. Someone was trying to get inside.


	5. Chapter Five : Betrayal

_Author Notes - This chapter was originally going to be about 7.5k words and cover a longer period of time. However, through editing, it reached over 10k words. Since I've been trying to get a chapter out every week, that was just too much so I cut it in half. Next chapter will probably be longer(if I don't have to cut that one up too)_

 _As always, thank you all for your reviews. They are appreciated. Even the critical ones._

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Chapter Five

 _Harry was debating whether or not to begin his first attempt at a wand when his magic flashed with a warning from within his mind. Harry recognized the feeling immediately. His proximity ward had been breached. Someone was trying to get inside._

Harry swore under his breath as he scrambled hastily to prepare for the intruder. First, he quickly vanished all of the tools lying around that he had conjured for the staff's creation. He then ran to retrieve the same staff that he had only just put away a moment before. He mixed it in with all of the wooden debris from the broken furniture that was still scattered around the place. Hopefully, the staff wouldn't be distinctive enough from the rest of it in to attract any attention. At a casual glance, it appeared to just be another piece of badly mangled wood from the fire which had destroyed everything else. Harry thought about extinguishing all of the candles that he had conjured earlier but thought better of it. Whoever had breached his proximity ward would have already seen them. If he got rid of the candle light now, then the intruder would know right away that someone was inside. If Harry left the candles lit, they'd hopefully just assume that he had stepped out.

He Disillusioned and silenced himself with a wave of his wand. He then masked his scent with a third spell and once again thanked his Auror training. Masking his scent was something he had not learned how to do until quite a few months into training when all the recruits were taught lessons on how to safely capture and detain werewolves. Although those three spells combined would have hidden his presence from everything within his own world, he was worried that it wouldn't be enough to hide him from a demon.

The Disillusionment Charm wasn't as easy to use as an invisibility cloak, and many people didn't bother to learn it past basic camouflage proficiency. For the few who took the time to perfect the charm, complete invisibility was definitely possible. Harry had, after months of practice, achieved what only a few people would even bother attempting and could now boast about his mastery of the charm. Even with a perfect cast, it still worked like camouflage in the way it perfectly blended your presence in with the background.

But just because it was perfect invisibility to the human mind, didn't mean it was perfect invisibility against a demon. Would it even work against them? Could they see through it? Could they detect magic? Could they detect heat? Harry didn't know, but he thought that he was probably about to find out.

He positioned himself in a corner of the room and not a second too soon. There was a loud bang as something collided with the metal door. The door remained firmly in place; the attempt had failed. The intruder's second attempt wasn't so fortunate. The hinges bent under the strain, and the lock fell into two pieces. In doing so, any doubts on whether or not the intruder was human was answered. No human other than a Slayer could possibly have achieved such destruction by hand and neither Slayer had a reason to barge into the place in the middle of the night without any warning.

Harry remained still and silent as two males entered the room. One was over a head taller than Harry with a bulky figure. He appeared to be the brute who had dismantled the door. The other was much smaller in stature with a slim build.

"It's empty," the large one observed.

"Perhaps," the slim one said as he scanned the room. His eyes swept past the corner that Harry was standing in as if it was any other corner and Harry let out a noiseless breath of relief. The two moved further into the room, scanning for any occupants.

"What's with the candles?" the brute asked before kicking one of them across the room.

"He must use them for his magic," the other reasoned incorrectly. He spat the word magic out as if the very word caused him to become enraged.

"I don't like warlocks," the muscled vampire snarled. His fists clenched in anger.

"No?" the other asked with a wicked grin, "I find that their magic adds just a hint of spice."

His companion appeared confused for a moment before he let out a large laugh.

"Quiet!"

"Sorry."

"Does the boss want us to wait for him?" the muscle asked.

"The warlock wouldn't leave flames burning if he wasn't coming back." The vampire looked thoughtful for a moment. "Unless he's still here."

"They can do that?" the other asked in concern.

"Boss said that this one was unlike the others. Stronger," he answered, "We do not know what he can do."

"Then why didn't the boss send his pet?"

"Shut up Curtis!" he hissed as he looked around the room suspiciously.

"Right. Sorry."

The two made their way back to the door. "I wish you left the door in better shape," the small one admonished. "Even a warlock isn't dumb enough to stick around after seeing that," he said, pointing to the door that was warped and hanging pitifully from only one of its hinges. He glanced around one more time before sighing in disappointment, "Let's go."

As the two were preparing to leave, Harry began to debate the pros and cons of engaging the two in a fight. He had waited this long because he was curious as to how they knew who and where he was. He was hoping they'd reveal more than they had. As he watched them walk towards the door, he knew he was about to lose his chance. He decided that he would have to risk engaging them in a fight. If he didn't at least try to bring the vampires down, then anyone they fed upon or they turned from that point on would undoubtedly weigh on his conscience. If it came down to it, Harry could simply Apparate away from the fight.

Since it was two on one, Harry needed something that could take one of them out of the fight during an initial surprise attack. However, it was a risk to cast any directly offensive spell at either vampire. The books had cautioned that vampires were very magically resistant. It wouldn't be a good idea to test just how much magically resilient they were unless he had an opening to do so.

Finally deciding on a strategy, Harry sent a quick beam of light at the door that the two were making their way towards. As the light left his wand, his Disillusionment Charm failed. The Charm required a constant level of focus to maintain, and his focus had instead shifted to casting another complex spell. The two vampires did not have the time to react to his sudden appearance because the light found its target. It smacked right into the center of the door. The two vampires smiled as they seemed to think he missed his target, but realized their error when the door morphed into a large black bear. As it went on its hind legs and let out a roar, Harry followed the Transfiguration up with a Blasting Curse aimed at the slim Vampire. The vampire dodged it with ease. It flew past its intended target and instead slammed into the wall. An explosion went off that blew a three-foot wide hole into the side of the factory.

"Oh hell no," the slim vampire said as he realized what he was up against. He shoved Curtis right into the path of the roaring bear and fled out the door. "Sorry, Curtis!" He shouted out. The bear pounced on Curtis, burying the vampire under its weight as it began to shred him apart.

After hesitating for just a moment, Harry Apparated outside of the building to chase down the fleeing vampire. He scanned the area and quickly spotted him; he was running towards the forest, where the cover of the trees would make a magical battle far riskier. Harry carefully aimed and sent an Incarcerous Spell. The vampire somehow seemed to sense it coming, and tried to move out of the way. However, the spell still managed to graze his arm and he stumbled to the ground as he fought off the wave of conjured rope. Harry Apparated closer and immediately conjured an ax. The vampire had broken free from the loose rope and was bringing himself to his feet when Harry swung the ax at the vampire's neck. The vampire rolled out of the way and charged at him. Harry threw the ax with the blade heading towards his opponent's throat. The vampire was too quick and side stepped it in one smooth motion. Harry responded with a magically conjured barrier, and only just in time. The vampire collided into it and bounced off. The shield held, but Harry was forced to take a step back as it harshly vibrated and visibly weakened. Thinking quickly, he decided to let the shield fall. The vampire saw his opening, assuming the magical shield failed. He leaped at Harry a second time but didn't notice the large wooden stake that Harry had conjured until it was too late. The vampire face grunted in shock as he impaled himself. Harry watched in victory as the surprised vampire evaporated into dust.

Quickly recovering from his first slain vampire, Harry Apparated back into the factory, preparing to counter the transfigured bear and possibly finish off the second vampire.

Instead, he was shocked to see the bear dead in the doorway with its head twisted gruesomely. Its neck had been snapped cleanly, and there was no sign of Curtis. Harry swore and quickly repaired the door and wall before taking a careful look around in order to make sure Curtis hadn't chosen to hide inside and surprise him. There didn't seem to be anyone there. Curtis had taken a page out of his partner's playbook and had hastily fled after he had taken care of the bear. Harry thought about trying to track the vampire down, as it was no doubt bleeding heavily from its injuries, but he thought better of it. Once he got out of the range of his burning candles, the woods would become pitch black and the vampire, injured though he was, would have the advantage. Harry grabbed his staff and his bundle of feathers and Apparated to the library. He could still feel his heart pounding in his chest and his hands shaking as he popped into the school.

He smiled to himself, for he knew it wasn't the brief rush of fear that was giving him the shakes. It was the aftershocks of the large burst of adrenaline. It was a sensation he had experienced many times in the past, and a sensation that he had greatly missed. It was the first time since his deal with Whistler that he thought that perhaps he had made the right decision in coming to that universe.

No one since the war had put up even close to the same level of a fight that the one vampire had shown. Harry's fame was so wide spread throughout Britain, that anyone he caught doing any sort of crime tended to surrender to him rather than try to fight. The only reason he had even been able to progress his combat abilities was the sparing that he was able to constantly convince his fellow Aurors into.

The short battle with the two vampires had been strangely refreshing in an adrenaline junkie sort of way. Harry placed his staff against one of the aisles as he prepared to head into the main floor of the Library.

Harry knew he had just been attacked and most likely betrayed by someone in this group of theirs. No one else could have possibly known about his arrival or his abilities. Still, he thought it best to try to appear calm rather than charge in and demand answers as to who had betrayed him. He desperately wanted to Legilimens each and every one of them until he found the traitor or traitors, but knew that it would be a terrible idea. Harry tried for a full minute to collect himself.

Once he thought he had taken care of the anger that had been visible upon his face, he rounded the corner. An expected sight greeted him. Xander, Willow, and Buffy were chatting away while Giles seemed to have tuned them all out and instead had his head in a book. Wesley sat along side him with his own large tome.

"Do you people do anything else?" Harry asked, mocking them and their hang out habits as he tried to hide his shaking hands in his pockets.

Buffy looked offended, "I'll have you know I saw a movie today."

"Have you guys been here long?" Harry asked, trying to sound nonchalant. It didn't seem to work, as both Giles and Wesley looked up from their books. They both seemed to have immediately suspected something. Apparently, Harry's face was less calm in appearance and more haggard and twitchy.

"What happened?" Giles asked as he closed his book and gave Harry his full attention.

Harry ignored the question."Who have you told about me?" he asked as he tried to remain calm. He needed to know who had just tried to kill him. However, letting his anger overwhelm him would more than likely just kill any sort of trust that was between them.

"Nobody that you haven't met," Giles answered with an intense stare. He seemed to already suspect that something had happened because of Harry's pointed question. Harry looked at the others, who all just shrugged.

Harry turned his attention to Wesley. "What about The Council? Did you blab to them about the dangerous wizard that needed to be put down?" Harry asked accusingly. He reasoned it was possible that The Council had vampires on their pay roll. Perhaps they offered them protection for other services? Wesley looked up from his book and turned red at the accusation.

"What happened?" Buffy asked, repeating Giles's earlier question. The query had the benefit of stopping Wesley's angry retort. Wesley struggled with himself to remain silent but eventually succeeded. He settled for a glare.

"I was just attacked," Harry said plainly, "two vampires broke into the place I had been staying." He paused for a moment before admitting in embarrassment, "It was probably stupid of me to stay in the one place that I was connected to." It reasoned that anyone looking for him would first inspect the area that he had magically appeared out of.

Buffy stood up, "you escaped? Are they still there?"

Harry shook his head. "One of 'them' escaped," Harry corrected, making sure to emphasize that he was not someone that fled from a fight and was quite capable of taking care of himself, "the other is dead."

"You're not hurt?" Willow asked in concern.

"No. Just pissed off," Harry answered honestly with a slight growl. Being attacked by vampires was something he had of course expected to happen in this universe, but being betrayed by one of the 'good guys' had not been. The others grew somber as they realized the same thing that he did. Someone must have betrayed them.

Xander seemed to think of something, "Do you think it was Anya? She was there when we first met Harry."

Giles appeared thoughtful, "She didn't strike me as someone who cared all that much about Harry, she left the first chance that she could. Though I suppose it's a possibility."

"I will speak with her tomorrow," Xander said grudgingly. It didn't appear as if he was looking forward to it.

"The Council wouldn't send vampires," Wesley said, finally answering the accusation that Harry had leveled. "Besides . . . I haven't yet been able to get in touch with them," he admitted quietly.

"Their two Slayers seem to be at the top of their list of priorities," Giles said sarcastically.

"I'm cool with that," Buffy said with a smile, "they can continue to stay out of it."

"Faith," Willow said quietly and blushed when it earned everyone's attention. "We were all thinking it. She's been acting strange lately," she said as she defended herself.

"My Slayer would never . . ." Wesley began.

"Your Slayer has a few screws loose," Xander corrected him.

Giles sighed wearily, "I think we all know that Faith is capable of just about anything, but that doesn't mean we should jump to conclusions. She is mentally fragile right now. I fear it wouldn't take much to set her off,"

"Well, I'd rather like to know if she's who's been trying to kill me as soon as possible," Harry rebuked. He forced himself to calm down as he thought of another suspect and turned to Buffy "you sure Angel is still Angel? I haven't seen him today."

"Yes," Buffy said, leaving no room for argument, "I just saw him. He was completely normal."

"How do you know he wasn't putting on an act?" Wesley said as he too tried to find an alternative suspect in order to divert attention away from Faith, "you said he pretended last time."

"He wasn't that good of an actor," Buffy said sadly, "I was just blind."

Giles too didn't seem convinced that Angel made a good suspect. "Sending two vampires to kill an enemy isn't Angelus's style. Angelus isn't a pragmatic vampire. If he can't have fun and get his own hands bloody, then to him, it isn't worth doing," Giles informed them. Buffy looked like she couldn't decide whether or not she was happy with the way that Giles had agreed with her.

The accusations abruptly died as no one else could offer up another reasonable suspect, nor had any other evidence as to who it could be. Harry could see that the conversation wasn't heading anywhere and decided that a change of subject was in order. Instead of wondering who had betrayed them, it was time to wonder why. He hadn't really shown any one of them what he was truly capable of. Anya knew that he could teleport and Angel and Faith probably knew everything that Buffy and Wesley did. However, he hadn't done anything yet that could be considered such a large threat to an outsider. Why would any one of them come after him at all? If their goal was to take out an adversary, why not go immediately after Buffy, Angel, or Faith instead?

"Why bother coming after me at all?" Harry asked as he voiced his thoughts out loud, "It's not like I've done anything worthy of attention."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at Giles with a questioning look. Giles shook his head negatively and Harry understood immediately what had just happened during their small interaction. Giles had just denied Buffy's intention of telling him something. Harry sighed and got up to retrieve his staff. The rest followed his movement with their eyes. Harry placed the staff on the table.

"Quid pro quo," he offered as he sat back down.

"Excuse me?" Giles asked as he grabbed the staff in interest. To him, it probably just looked like a large stick.

"You're keeping stuff from me," Harry said as a matter of fact "and I'm keeping stuff from you."

"You'll stop hiding things from us if we start being more open with you?" Giles asked as he figured out what Harry was implying.

Harry nodded and waited for an answer. Giles appeared lost in thought as he placed the staff back on the table.

Wesley looked eager, "you'll answer any question we have? Truthfully?"

Harry gave him a shrewd look. "No. I'll answer any question she has," he said, gesturing to Buffy, who's jaw dropped open in shock. Harry found himself trusting Buffy more than the others for some reason, but didn't think it was wise to extend the trust much further than that.

Wesley didn't like that answer. "No offense, but she doesn't have the knowledge nor the foresight for that kind of responsibility."

"Gee thanks," Buffy grumbled under her breath.

"No offense" Harry bit out sarcastically, "but I've seen Buffy fight and die for the same war that I am now a part of. That earns my respect far faster than someone barking out orders." Harry remained firm.

"Buffy?" Giles asked calmly as he interrupted their spat. It was enough to keep Wesley from continuing.

"You trust me?" Buffy asked Harry skeptically, looking for an alternative motive.

"Honestly? No," Harry replied with a weary chuckle. "I don't trust easily," Harry admitted, "however, I'm starting to suspect that that's no longer an option. I can't have my only allies keeping secrets from me when I'm being attacked in the middle of the night. And I can't demand information when I've obviously been keeping things to myself."

"Full disclosure?" Giles asked intently, "no half-truths, omitted facts, misleading answers, etc?"

Harry couldn't help but grin as the man tried to cover all the bases, "if you agree to the same."

Giles shared a glance with Buffy, who seemed to give the agreement her consent with a nod of her head. Giles turned back to Harry and relented. "Very well. However, just so you know, we were not hiding anything of value to you. We only have some speculation brought forth because of a sensitive matter," Giles said before he began to explain what he had chosen to keep secret earlier.

While Harry was being attacked by vampires; Buffy and Faith had been having their own encounter with a demon. A friendly demon apparently. The demon had offered them a series of tomes simply called "The Books Of Ascension". The interesting part was that the Demon was under the impression that the Mayor would be angry if the books were seen by them and the demon had even implied that the Mayor himself was taking part in an Ascension of his own. The group later discovered a reference to an Ascension which wiped out a whole town. Whatever an Ascension was, it didn't appear to be a good thing, and it led the crew to believe that the Mayor was up to something big, and had been for a long time.

"You think that this Mayor was the one that sent his minions for me?" Harry asked, pleased that it appeared as if they were finally getting somewhere.

"Everything seems to be connecting back to him. If this 'Ascension' is a magical ritual of some kind, it would make sense to try and kill the mysterious wizard who just happened to show up. If he thinks you can stop it, then I imagine it won't be the only time he comes for you," Giles reasoned before reminding him, "we still don't know how he knew about you."

"Perhaps," Harry said diplomatically. He had his suspicions and he was pretty sure that his suspicions were shared by at least a few others at the table.

"What about this?" Buffy asked as she took the staff from Giles and twirled it around. Harry winced at her unexpected use of the weapon but refrained from saying anything about it.

"It's a magical staff," Harry answered. He watched in amusement as she stopped moving it around and carefully placed it back on the table while eyeing it suspiciously.

"This is your big secret?" Buffy asked skeptically, "we already saw you use a stick of some sort, why make such a fuss about a staff?"

"The big deal," Harry started reluctantly, "Is that without a wand or staff, I have trouble doing most magic. If you all managed to break both of my weapons this instant, there is very little that I could do about it."

"That 'is' a pretty big deal," Willow said seriously. Harry nodded, pleased that at least someone had acknowledged that he was putting himself out there. He just hoped that in doing so, he hadn't given Wesley any ideas. Harry hadn't shown any of them his combat abilities just yet, so Wesley would be a fool to try to force a battle. Harry, however, didn't rule out the possibility.

"I was going to ask if you could hold on to this one for me," Harry told Buffy as he gestured to the staff in front of her. Her eyes widened in shock at his request and bit her lip in thought.

"You plan to make more?" Willow questioned. She had caught the way he had phrased his request.

Harry laughed, "I'd be a fool not to, but a staff is very limited. They are easy to craft, but what I really need to do is make some more wands." He took out his wand and spun it around for a moment in order to remind the others what it looked like. "They aren't easy to create and it may take me some time. I needed the staff as insurance," Harry paused a second before admitting, "and I couldn't think of a safer place for it. It would be a bit too risky trying to keep it near me at all times."

"And what do those bird feathers have to do with any of it?" Buffy asked as she thought about their trip to the zoo.

Harry noticed that she kept the staff close. A positive indicator that she seemed to accept the task of protecting it for him.

"The feathers are part of the staff," Harry answered. He went on to explain how the two components interacted with each other, and why the staff would have been completely useless without the feather or the ability to infuse it into the wood. The group looked like they kind of understood what he was saying. Or at least Giles and Willow seemed to.

"What are we going to do about The Books of Ascension?" Wesley asked impatiently, changing the subject. He didn't seem to think Harry or his magic was something that should be discussed.

Xander brought himself to his feet, "I'll go ask around for the location of the demon." Giles and Wesley looked skeptical but didn't object as Xander left.

"You three figure it out," Buffy said as she too got up from the table. "I'm going to hide this," she paused to pick up the staff, "and then check on Angel."

"Be careful," Giles advised as she walked out of the library.

"You think that's wise? Letting her go off on her own? Angel might not be . . . well, Angel," Willow asked.

"Buffy can handle herself," Wesley stated.

Giles frowned. "Though perhaps not when it comes to Angel," he too looked worried.

"She'll be fine. We have other things to worry about. Like the fact that even if Xander finds the demon," Wesley said doubtfully as he clearly did not expect such a thing likely. "We don't have the cash to buy the books off of him. Buffy and Faith may need to take the books by force," Wesley said.

"How much did he want?" Harry asked thoughtfully.

"Five thousand dollars," Giles scoffed, "what happened to requests of virgin blood, or the hearts of children? Demons these days have no standards." His outrage at the price tag on display evident.

Hary smiled at the librarian's bizarre point of view before thinking back to the problem at hand. Harry knew that conjuring up that amount of Muggle money wouldn't technically be a problem for him. It was only when he thought about the possible ramifications that could occur that he hesitated. "These books could perhaps prevent the destruction and deaths of hundreds of people?" Harry inquired, making sure that he understood the situation.

"Undoubtedly."

"Leave it to me then. Do you have a note on you?" Harry asked quietly. Giles raised an eyebrow but seemed to understand where Harry was going with it. He took out his wallet and handed Harry a twenty dollar bill. Harry looked at it and sighed at the thought of what he was going to do.

He studied the bill for a full minute. He had never actually seen one before and wanted to make himself familiar with it. The Duplication Charm didn't need a perfect visual to work properly but it never hurt to have one.

Harry sat the bill on the table and flicked his wand at it. "Gemino," he said. The incantation wasn't required, but it helped to make the copies flawlessly identical. The one twenty dollar bill turned into five bills. Harry stacked each bill on top of one another before casting the charm again. The one stack turned into ten stacks. He repeated the process one more time and the larger stack multiplied by five. A pile of money now sat in front of him. He pushed it over to the two gobsmacked Watchers and one envious young witch.

"I hadn't thought of that application earlier," Giles admitted.

"They'll all have the same serial numbers, and all but the original will start to degrade over time," Harry said tonelessly. He did not like doing what he just did. "But I want to be there during the exchange," Harry declared.

"What for?" Wesley asked suspiciously.

"I want to counter the duplication charm once it's over. I'd feel better ripping off a demon than whoever found themselves with useless currency once it started to degrade," Harry confessed.

The two Watchers gave each other a telling glance. Wesley nodded, "Very well."

Harry didn't hide his amusement when he noticed both Wesley and Giles testing the bills for any faults. It seems to pass their inspection because neither of them said anything. Harry watched as Giles used rubber bands to stack the bills in a way that made them easier to handle.

Deciding that he didn't want to waste any more time doing nothing but waiting for something to happen, Harry Apparated back to the factory in order to quickly grab another piece of maple wood and set up another perimeter ward. Even from a large distance away, he would be notified if someone else decided to try and enter the factory. He did this so he would be able to know before hand if it was safe to pop back in. He no longer had plans of living there after that night.

Back at the library, Harry sat down with another conjured knife and began to whittle down the small piece of maple. He made sure to regularly vanish the small shavings that fell to the floor every time that Giles sent them a disapproving glance. While Harry was doing this, Giles, Wesley, and Willow went back to trying to find more information about The Ascension. They each grew more and more frustrated as each hour went by without success. Harry felt a wave of drowsiness hit him as the piece of maple finally began to resemble a wand.

Eventually, Willow gave up and headed home. She had Oz pick her up.

Harry decided that it would probably be wise to get some rest in order to be better prepared for the potential meeting with the demon. He put down his tools before casting a quick perimeter ward around his chair. Also, just in case, he also set up a simple physical barrier around himself. Nothing would be able to easily get in, and the first time someone tried, the ward would alert him enough to wake him. The two Watchers watched him work but didn't bother to ask what he was doing.

He put his head on the table and closed his eyes.


	6. Chapter Six : A Desouling

_Author Notes - This and the next chapter will be on the shorter side since I ended up having to break up the chapter in two again. In order to compensate, I decided to release this chapter a few days sooner._

 _Thanks for all the reviews, you all managed to hit the 100 mark last chapter. Very nice!_

 _For anyone reviewing as a guest, I just want to let you all know that even though I'd love to respond to you in a private message, I won't be using author notes to comment. If any of you care about a response, please log in. If not, then, well, keep doing what you're doing._

* * *

Chapter Six

 _Just in case, he also set up a simple physical barrier around himself. Nothing would be able to easily get in, and the first time someone tried, the ward would alert him enough to wake him. The two Watchers watched him work but didn't bother to ask what he was doing._

 _He put his head on the table and closed his eyes._

A loud thump startled Harry awake. He jumped up quickly from the table and felt his chair rock back due to the sudden shifting of his weight. He relaxed once he concluded that the sound had simply been the result of a large book being shut. The light shining through the windows told him that he had slept until morning, longer than the quick nap that he had planned for. He glanced around the table and saw that both Giles and Wesley were still there. The pile of books lying discarded around the both of them had grown a lot since Harry had settled down for a nap and the frowns decorating their faces had deepened.

"Have you two been here all night?" Harry asked, surprised, yet impressed with their dedication. They nodded, but neither looked terribly happy about it. He knew then that he didn't need to ask them whether or not they had found anything.

Harry went back to working on his wand, and it wasn't long after that when Buffy returned. She no longer appeared to be in a very good mood.

"Has Xander returned yet?" she asked with a grouchy mumble. If Giles or Wesley noticed her change in mood, then they didn't say anything. Perhaps it was just a common occurrence with Buffy.

"No, and I don't think we should leave something this important up to a teenage boy. You should find Faith and try to track this demon down yourselves," Wesley suggested.

"I can do it alone," Buffy grumbled.

"Buffy," Wesley scolded, "this is far too important for a petty rivalry between Slayers."

Wesley was saved from what would have probably been a sharp rebuke from Buffy by the entrance of Xander. "I found your demon," he shouted with success. Wesley's face soured as Buffy shot him a smug look. Xander took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Buffy. "Found the address. I beat it out of Willy The Snitch personally," he said with a grin.

"You beat up Willy?" Buffy asked with an amused smile.

"Sure. Well, actually let's just say I applied some pressure. Or more accurately, I asked politely and then . . . okay, I bribed him," Xander confessed.

"How much?"

"Twenty-Eight bucks," Xander answered. "Does The Council reimburse for that kind of stuff?" Xander asked Giles.

"Did you get a receipt?" Giles mocked.

"Damn," Xander swore in faux anger.

"Willy?" Harry asked once their banter had finished.

"He runs an all night bar. Seems to know more than he should," Buffy explained as she took a look at the note Xander had passed her. She got up from the table, most likely with the plan of ignoring Wesley's previous order to bring Faith along with her. Unfortunately for Buffy, Faith entered the library almost as soon as Buffy left her chair. She noticed Buffy's planned departure immediately.

"Where we going, girlfriend?" Faith asked with a spring in her step.

"Actually I can handle this one solo," Buffy said awkwardly. Harry could feel the tension in the air. Was it possible that Buffy, like Harry, suspected that Faith was the one going behind their backs to the Mayor?

Either Faith didn't sense the tension or didn't particularly care. "Why do you get to have all the fun? Share, share, that's fair, right?" she teased.

Buffy clearly wasn't amused but let up anyway and handed Faith the address, "Found our demon."

"Oh," Faith said in disappointment. She seemed to have expected something far more entertaining. "Well, let's go look him up."

"Before you leave," Giles interrupted as he pushed a brown paper bag over to the side of the table. Buffy gave him a questioning look before taking the bag and looking inside. Her mouth dropped open as she took out a wad of cash. Faith whistled in appreciation at the sight.

"Harry will be joining you," Wesley told them. Harry thanked him with a nod before getting up from the table.

Faith sent him a withering look. "What for?" She questioned.

"I'm funding this adventure," Harry answered, pointing to the bag. "Besides, we can't really trust a bag of cash to two teenage girls, now can we?" Harry joked. The joke earned him two death glares from the insulted Slayers.

"Why bother with the cash? Why not just take the books by force?" Faith asked skeptically.

"Hopefully you can," Wesley answered before admitting, "having the cash there in case he has hidden the books somewhere would be ideal,"

"Lead the way," Harry said as he took out his wand and held it loosely in his hand.

Buffy raised an eyebrow at him and gave his wand a pointed look. "Is that necessary?" she whispered as Faith took the lead in front of them.

Harry gave a meaningful glance in Faith's direction, "Kind of. Yeah." They started following behind Faith.

Faith glanced over her shoulder, "you two plan on staring at my ass the whole way there?" she teased crudely as she wiggled her butt teasingly. Buffy and Harry rolled their eyes at each other before catching up to the dark haired Slayer.

They walked in silence the whole way there with Buffy and Faith both seeming to be somewhere else entirely. Buffy went back to brooding about something while Faith was clearly lost in her own thoughts as well. Harry decided that he wouldn't go out of his way to force a conversation with either of them and instead just enjoyed the silence. They finally arrived at a beaten up apartment building and soon after found the room number that Willy had given Xander.

"Wait out here," Buffy ordered him. Harry thought about arguing, but decided that having three people trying to fight in a small apartment wasn't a very good idea. As she handed him the bag of cash for sake keeping, Faith barged into the room. Buffy sighed in exasperation before going in after her. Harry listened for any sounds of fighting as he focused on the bag of cash in his hand.

Life there would be much easier if he just gave in to the temptation of simply manufacturing all the money he could ever need. Duplicating a bill wouldn't pass more than a glancing inspection because of the identical serial codes, but he could conjure bills while making sure that each had their own unique markers. They wouldn't last as long, but they would be more usable. Even with how easy it could be done, his conscience just wouldn't allow it. Never mind the backlash that would occur once people figured out where all the disappearing cash was coming from.

It wasn't as if Harry was in a huge rush to find a job or a way to earn a living. He hadn't lied when he said magic could supply anything he could ever need just to survive on. It was simple enough to find food to duplicate. Along with that, his conjuration was good enough to create a resting place for himself every night.

That didn't, however, mean that it was the quality of life he was interested in living for a long period of time.

After only being inside for perhaps a minute, Buffy and Faith exited the apartment together, neither looked to be in a good mood. Harry gave Buffy a questioning look and she frowned in response. "He's dead." She muttered, answering his unspoken question.

"The books?" Harry asked. She sighed and shook her head.

"He must have pissed off the wrong demon," Faith reasoned.

"Or the Mayor found out about the books he was shopping around," Buffy said thoughtfully. Harry nodded in agreement as he found Buffy's theory far more likely.

The trip wasn't a waste for Harry however because it only gave him more evidence. Only a few people could have possibly told the Mayor anything about the demon, and that made it even more likely that Faith was the one playing a double agent. Along with the fact that she had disappeared for the night made it seem even more obvious to him.

"Well, this was a waste of time," Harry said, directly contradicting his own thoughts. He glanced down at the bag in his hands and decided that it would probably be best to just get rid of it. He proceeded to counter the magic on the stacks of cash before vanishing the bag. He was left with a single twenty dollar bill. He stuffed it in his pocket in order to give it back to Giles later.

Buffy didn't so much as blink in reaction to the disappearance of the thousands of dollars, but Faith looked like she was ready to demand that he make it all reappear.

"You going to leave the body of a demon lying around?" Harry asked curiously. It seemed strange to Harry that the existence of demons could somehow not become common knowledge when their bodies just hung around after death. The existence of vampire's, he could understand. Once staked, the evidence of their very existence was gone; turned into dust.

But dead demons remaining unnoticed by a majority of the human population? How does that even happen?

"Well, we're not going to carry a dead body around," Faith bit out sarcastically.

Harry walked into the apartment. "Do demons have a religion or anything, how do they prefer to be disposed of? Buried? Burned?" he called out in question, more out of curiosity than anything else.

He heard Faith mutter, "Is he serious?"

Buffy walked in after him. "They don't have souls," Buffy reminded him, "I don't think they really care."

Harry frowned down at the dead demon. The body had multiple stab wounds. The demon had not gone down easily.

The two horns, bald head, horned nose and wrinkled skin made it quite a gruesome creature and would be particularly menacing if he was still alive. However, from the way Buffy had described their earlier encounter with him, he seemed far too meek to be running around killing the innocent. It was strange to Harry how sentient intelligent beings with needs of their own could simply be classified as a soulless creature not worthy of life. How did one even classify a being as soulless?

A being without a soul in his world was nearly dead to the world. A mere husk of a person; an empty shell. Even a Dementor had a soul of its own.

Harry sighed and waved his wand over the body. It vanished into nothing.

"You mind if I give you a ring the next time I need to bury a body?" Buffy joked.

Harry let out a laugh, "Don't tell anyone, but I was actually only brought to this world in order to be an on-call body disposal service for The Vampire Slayers."

"The Powers That Be are very wise," Buffy said, somehow keeping a straight face. The two smiled at each other in amusement before leaving the apartment to rejoin Faith. Soon after that, Faith left them to do her own thing.

"You want a ride back to school?" Harry asked Buffy. It took her a moment to understand what he was implying and her eyes widened.

"You can do that?" she asked incredulously.

"Yup."

"It's safe?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?" she asked again, obviously skeptical. Harry just raised an eyebrow in response. "Fine," she relented, "How do we do this?"

Harry gave her a smirk before gently grabbing her shoulder. He ignored the shift in her weight as she prepared to defend herself. "Try to remain standing," he advised. He waited until he could confirm that she heard him before he Apparated away, taking her along with him. They both appeared in the corner of the library. While Harry remained perfectly posed through years of practice, Buffy stumbled into a shelf and leaned on it heavily. It was the only thing that had kept her on her feet. She appeared slightly green but managed not to throw up.

"It's like that every time?" she asked.

Harry shrugged, "You get used to it."

"I'm sure," she said dryly.

Buffy left the explaining of what had happened on their trip up to him as she immediately departed the library in order to rush to class.

Giles was the only person that still remained in the library; Wesley had gone back home to get some sleep. Harry gave Giles back his twenty dollar bill while telling him what had occurred when trying to get The Books Of Ascension. He seemed disappointed yet at the same time, not all that surprised.

"Nothing's ever easy around here," Giles said with resignation. Harry smiled, amused at the man's unique viewpoint.

The phone rang a moment later and Giles got up to answer it. "Sunnydale High Library, Rupert Giles speaking," he answered. Harry could see his face morph into shock a moment later.

"I see," Giles said slowly before pausing in thought.

"Yes, please pretend to go through with it."

"Okay."

"Thank you."

Giles hung up the phone and sat back at the table. Harry could almost see the wheels turning in his head.

"What was that about?" Harry asked. Giles flinched in his seat as if he had forgotten Harry was even there.

"Nothing. Nothing," he said quickly.

Harry didn't have to be a Legilimens to notice the lie. "Alright . . ." Harry said, not even trying to hide the fact that he didn't believe him. He got up to leave.

"Wait," Giles said suddenly. He seemed to be having an eternal debate with himself.

Harry raised an eyebrow in response. "Yes?" Harry asked, giving him another chance to tell the truth.

"We had said full disclosure," Giles said suddenly as if he needed to remind himself of that fact.

"We did," Harry answered. He hadn't planned on pushing for Giles to tell him the truth. He had simply assumed that the trust pact they had made earlier had been broken and now he would move on.

"You have to understand, this may be very dangerous information. I have to ask that you let me take the lead on this," Giles pleaded. Harry could tell that if the pact hadn't been made just the night before, then he wouldn't be hearing any of this. Giles appeared to be a man of his word.

"I understand," Harry relented. Giles gave him a sharp look as if trying to judge the honesty of Harry's promise.

Giles caved and began to explain what had happened. The phone call had been an old acquaintance of Giles's that owed him a debt. Apparently, he called to tell Giles that the Mayor had summoned him while using a magical ritual. The Mayor was requesting for Giles's acquaintance to perform a ritual of his own. More specifically, to perform a specific ritual, a ritual that would take a vampire's soul away. As Giles only knew of one vampire in all of history with a soul, it wasn't a hard guess as to who the Mayor wanted to take care of.

"He had no choice but to answer the summon and he feared that a direct refusal to the Mayor would result in harsh retribution. He let me know that he was only going to pretend to perform that ritual," Giles finished.

"What stops the Mayor from calling him up again when he finds out that he was lied to?" Harry questioned, worried for whoever had given him such useful information.

"Apparently he will be taking preventative measures to stop that from happening in the near future," Giles said with a shrug. He didn't seem to be very well versed in summoning rituals.

"The Mayor is making moves," Harry said thoughtfully, "before yesterday you knew almost nothing about the man, yet today we can assume that he's in the middle of some sort of deadly ritual, that he has tried to kill me, and that he is now going for Angel."

"The thought has occurred to me," Giles muttered. They were in agreement then, whatever ritual the Mayor was planning seemed to be closing in on them. The Mayor would have no other reason for making such obvious moves.

"And this gives you a chance to get someone into the Mayor's circle to find out more," Harry observed.

"My thoughts exactly."

"The secret is safe with me," Harry promised after he thought it through. He would let Giles's plan run its course before making his next move. If their betrayer didn't come into the light soon, then he would have to be more direct in finding out who it was. He already had the likely culprit in his sights, he would just need to prove it.

Giles nodded his head in relief as he ran his hand down his face, showing a hint of the stress he must be feeling.

"I need someone to tell Angel. With your abilities, you're probably the best bet to get to him quickly," Giles said. Harry raised an eyebrow in question. "He doesn't own a phone," Giles explained.

"I don't know where he lives . . ." Harry said before thinking of a simple solution. "If you let me peek into your mind, I can use a memory of it to Apparate," Harry suggested. Giles stared at him blankly for a moment before recovering.

"Mind reading?" Giles asked in shock, "really?"

Harry nodded.

"How will it work?" Giles asked as he debated whether or not to allow such an intrusion.

"Just think of a memory of when you were there. I'll cast a spell in order to view the memory from within your mind and use that to Apparate," Harry answered. He thought of what he had just said and let out a bark of laughter. Such a simple matter to him must have seemed like a whole lot of impossible to Giles.

"The link won't remain open? You can't get into my mind anytime you want?" Giles asked. His reluctance visible on his face.

Harry shook his head. "No, I'll have to cancel the spell before I can Apparate. And in order to get back in, I would have to cast the spell again," Harry answered. He wasn't a strong enough Legilimens to perform the spell through simple eye contact. "You may be able to recognize any further intrusions after the first one. The sensation is pretty unique," Harry continued in explanation, hoping that appealing to his inquisitive side would make him relent to the request.

Giles nodded with trepidation. "Very well. Do it," he said as he closed his eyes, "I'm thinking of it now."

Harry waved his wand. "Legilimens," he said clearly. Harry was immediately bombarded with what appeared to be random flashes of memories. "Focus on Angel's place," Harry reminded Giles. He didn't want to have to probe directly into the man's mind and hoped that Giles could remain focused long enough to bring the memory to Harry on his own. The memories slowed down until finally, only one remained at the forefront, easy to grasp. Harry viewed it for a second before deciding that it was the one he had been looking for. He studied the place for a moment before canceling the connection. He thanked Giles, and a moment later, Apparated away.

The Apparition ended with a loud crack as Harry stumbled. He fell to a knee in order to steady himself. Apparating from someone else's memory was neither fun nor easy. It was especially hard to focus on a place that you had only seen for a moment through someone else's eyes. Dumbledore had once made it look simple, but through experiences of his own, Harry could say that it was one of the hardest things to do while Apparating. He was just glad that he hadn't Splinched himself while attempting it. Rising up to his feet, he looked around the place. The house was big; far larger than Harry would have guessed. It had large open spaces, with light shining through. Thick white walls made the area look even brighter.

Harry couldn't help but be surprised that a vampire was living there, in the quite large mansion. It seemed as if Angel was doing pretty well for himself. Though perhaps, like Harry, Angel was also squatting on another's property.

Speaking of Angel, the vampire came rushing out of an adjacent room with a sword in his hand. He stopped short as he saw Harry standing there.

"Harry?" he said groggily, "what the hell was that noise?"

Harry realized then that he must have woken the vampire up with his loud Apparition. Angel remained standing in the doorway, making sure not to come any closer. One glance around the brightly lit room explained why.

He wasn't sure when Giles's acquaintance was arriving to put on the theater show but wanted to make sure Angel was alone when it happened. Harry quickly apologized before rushing to explain why he was there.

"I see," Angel whispered as Harry finished, "and how far does Giles want me to go with it?"

"No killing of course, but he needs to know what the Mayor is planning," Harry paused for a moment before adding, "Buffy will know what's happening."

Angel looked relieved, "And the others?"

Harry shook his head, "We think there is a traitor. We can't be sure who can be trusted."

"And they trust you?" Angel asked with skepticism.

"I know, right?" Harry said with a shrug. There was no use in going into detail about the trust pact that had been made. "I need to go before anything happens. Do you need to know anything else?"

Angel shook his head before realizing something. "Wait," he said suddenly. Harry watched as his face forced itself to remain stoic. "If this is a trick, and Angelus 'does' turn up. I need you to do everything you can to stop me."

"Buffy won't like that," Harry pointed out.

"Buffy already had to stop me once. I fear what will happen if she has to do it again," Angel reasoned. "Promise me," he pleaded.

"Alright. I will," Harry relented, trying to get the conversation over with so he could leave before it was too late. He didn't think it would come to that anyway. Giles seemed to trust the word of this acquaintance of his. Angel nodded sharply in thanks.

"I need to prepare," Angel muttered as he went back into his room. Harry wasted no time in popping back out.

Back at the library, Giles and Buffy sat alone at the table in an intense discussion. Harry remained behind the bookcase and out of sight; he didn't want to interrupt the private conversation. The voices got slightly heated for a moment before they cut off. Harry heard Buffy walk away and out the library doors. Harry appeared from out of his hiding spot.

"Buffy knows?" Harry asked quietly.

"Yes. She knows," Giles said with a weary sigh.

"She's on board?"

Giles let out a tired chuckle, "Yes, but she made sure to remind me that I hadn't given her a choice."

Harry watched as Giles remained dispirited. Harry could see right away that Buffy meant a lot to Giles. If it wasn't obvious by him choosing a mediocre career as a high school librarian just so he could keep an eye on his Slayer, then his current reaction at Buffy's displeasure with him made it quite clear.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Harry asked after a moment.

Giles thought for a moment before shaking his head, "We just need to let this play out now."

Harry nodded in understanding, "I'll check back later then."

"Will you be safe?" Giles asked as he remembered that Harry had only recently been attacked while staying at the factory.

"Safe enough," Harry replied with a shrug.

Giles appeared thoughtful for a moment. "I have a pretty comfortable sofa," he hinted.

Harry looked at the older man in shock but grew hesitant, "Yeah?"

"It'll be safer for you. Especially if only you and I know about you staying there," Giles said convincingly. Harry couldn't help but fidget uncomfortably. The man was offering a lot with the simple gesture. Or at least it seemed that way. A part of his mind that remained distrustful of just about everyone was telling him that it could all be a trap. If Giles knew where Harry was sleeping, it would be a simple matter for him to try to take Harry out. Harry shook his head in order to get rid of the voice. Giles had given him no reason not to trust him.

At the moment it was simply paranoia that kept himself at arm's reach. He figured that he could live the rest of his time there distrustful of everyone's actions, or he could take the risk and just accept that there were now a few new people that he could rely on. Thinking back to Giles's offer, Harry made up his mind.

"Thank you," Harry said with a smile, "I'd like that."

"You looked like you could use some restful sleep without worrying about being attacked," Giles said, explaining what had brought on his offer. He was right, Harry felt dead on his feet after the last two Apparitions. The nap he had taken that morning hadn't been nearly long enough. He decided not to confess that even while crashing on the other man's sofa, he would still remain worried about being attacked.

"Ditto for you," Harry replied, noticing that Giles had dark bags under his eyes. It was easy to see that Giles felt just about the same way as he did, yet without the added benefit of getting a nap that morning.

Giles laughed and nodded in agreement."I'll only sleep soundly when this is all over. You should get some rest now, we may need you later," Giles suggested. "I'll ring the flat if something comes up," he promised. Harry thought for a moment before agreeing to the suggestion. It hadn't been a hard decision, just the idea of lying down and getting some sleep had made him yawn.

Giles suggested that Harry use Legilimency once again to get the apartment's location out of his mind, but Harry quickly declined. "I'm too tired, It's dangerous for me to try doing that again in this state," Harry explained, deciding not to risk it. Normal Apparition was fine and nearly risk-free even when exhausted, but trying to use someone else's memory was far riskier when you had trouble even thinking straight due to exhaustion.

He pictured all of The Powers That Be looking down in disappointment as the wizard they had sent to save the world instead Splinched himself in a faulty Apparition and slowly bled to death.

Giles pointed to a spot on a map, showing Harry where his apartment was located and gave a brief description on what it looked like. Harry said goodbye, thanking him again for his hospitality. He then Apparated out of the library and appeared in the middle of an alley way. He had found this spot while walking towards the Magic Box, and it was far closer to Giles's place than the library had been. Pausing for a second to get his bearings, he made his way to the apartment.

He arrived after only a brisk walk. It was a quaint place. There were two flights of stairs built into the side of a hill, all leading up to a small white building.

The numbers appeared to match with what Giles had given him. He hurriedly created a perimeter ward outside of the apartment, just in case, and then made his way inside. The apartment opened to a small living room space with a kitchen off to the side. Harry took one glance at the couch and collapsed into it. He was asleep a moment later.


	7. Chapter Seven : Traitor

_Author Notes - I'm sorry for such a long delay. I don't really have any excuses except for complete laziness. A shout out to DaSalvatore who left me a very kind review that helped me got off my ass and return to writing. I went through the last six chapters and 'tried' to touch them up. It took awhile, and I probably still have a lot of work to do. Nothing in the plot has changed, so if you remember everything about this story. . . then there really is no need to read the earlier chapters again. If anyone does need a refresh in memory. . . well, then hopefully the chapters read at least a little bit better. I will try to improve them even more in the coming weeks. I'm no longer going to even try to update weekly, but I will promise to try to update more regularly than the one chapter every two months that I am currently averaging._

 _Onward to. . ._

Chapter Seven

 _The numbers appeared to match with what Giles had given him. He hurriedly created a perimeter ward outside of the apartment, just in case, and then made his way inside. The apartment opened to a small living room space with a kitchen off to the side. Harry took one glance at the couch and collapsed into it. He was asleep a moment later._

Brring! Brring!

Harry groaned and rolled over in his sleep.

Brring! Brring!

He sat up slowly as he wondered why there was a high pitched ring echoing through the house. It rang one more time before he realized that it was Giles's phone. He unsteadily got to his feet and felt a wave of drowsiness pass over him. He felt almost as tired then as he did when he first fell asleep. However, a clock hanging on a wall told him that he had been sleeping almost all day and it was now well past sundown.

Harry answered the phone on its sixth ring. "Rupert Giles residence," Harry said groggily after a moment of trying to remember the proper way to answer someone else's telephone.

"Harry," Giles's voice came through. His voices sounded urgent. Harry mumbled a reply.

"It's Faith, Harry," Giles said with sadness.

The leftover drowsiness from the nap disappeared in an instant as Harry realized what he must have meant. Giles seemed to have learned that it was Faith who was responsible for the two vampires that had come after him in the middle of the night. "You sure?"

"You sure?"

"Yes. She was spotted with who she believes is Angelus. I tried to call Buffy but her mother informed me that she left with Angel and Faith to go back to Angel's," Giles said quickly, in a rush to deliver the facts.

"What do you need me to do?" Harry asked, figuring that the phone call had a purpose other than informing him of the situation. Harry had agreed to follow Giles's lead, but he still wanted to help make Faith pay for what she had done.

"I need you to go and make sure Buffy is safe," Giles replied.

"You think Faith can take on Angel and Buffy?" Harry asked skeptically.

"No, Buffy alone is more than a match for Faith," Giles said proudly before admitting, "It would be best if you were there just in case Angel isn't on the side that we think he is."

Harry imagined the scenario in his head. Buffy, thinking she wasn't in any danger, but finding out quickly enough that Angelus was where Angel was supposed to be. Yes, Harry thought. That would be very bad indeed. "I'll leave right away," Harry promised. He heard a click as Giles closed the connection. Harry put the phone away before Apparating out of the apartment. He appeared just outside of Angel's house. He Disillusioned and Silenced himself before anyone could have possibly noticed his appearance. After a brief check to make sure both spells were performed perfectly, he stepped into the vampire's mansion. The sight that greeted Harry was worrisome at first. Faith stood in the middle of Angel and a tied up Buffy while holding a dagger threateningly. His worry faded when he saw Buffy break herself free from the seemingly fake bindings. She said something to Faith, but Harry was far too out of range to hear what it was. But whatever it was sent Faith into a frenzy.

"You played me!" She screamed at Buffy, snarling in rage.

The rest of the gang; Xander, Willow, Oz, Wesley and a fifth that Harry didn't recognize charged through the house doors on the opposite side of the room. Faith, reacting quickly, grabbed Angel and threw him into the group. Xander immediately went down as Angel rolled into him. The rest of the group seemed to be under the impression that Angel was Angelus. However, in the heat of the moment, they couldn't decide on whether to stake Angel or instead help Buffy. They quickly decided on a third option and they, like Harry, chose to watch the two Slayers instead.

Faith went at Buffy with the knife that she had been holding but the blonde slayer swiftly dodged the blow and countered with a kick to Faith's legs. The kick landed but not in the best position, and Faith was able to remain standing. She swiftly countered with two punches to Buffy's head. Buffy fell to the floor and rolled away while Faith followed after her. Before Harry could even blink, they were at a stalemate. Each holding a knife to the other's throat.

"What are you going to do B?" Faith said while eyeing Buffy's blade. "Kill me? You become me," she said with a smirk. She watched as Buffy hesitated. "You're not ready for that," Faith said in realization; she seemed disappointed. "Not yet," she muttered as she rose to her feet, breaking their stalemate. She leaned forward and kissed Buffy on the forehead before turning and taking off in a sprint. Buffy didn't even try to stop her; too shocked at hearing those words spoken so casually.

It was only a fraction of a second later that Harry realized that Faith was running straight at his location. To her, it was the only clear exit. The rest of the group was blocking the only other way out. Harry waited until she was far too close to dodge and fired a Stunner at her. Harry was shocked to see that she recognized the attack and even reacted quickly enough in order to attempt to dodge it. Fortunately, even with her extraordinary reflexes, it struck her in the shoulder. She immediately froze while in the middle of her dodge attempt and collapsed to the floor. It appeared that Slayers didn't have any of the same magical resistances that demons were well documented in having. Still, rather than risk it, Harry also hit her with an Incarcerous Spell and watched as a thick brown rope wrapped itself around her prone form. Even if she did awaken, it would take her more than a moment to get free from the bindings. Plenty of time for Harry to hit her with something else.

Buffy soon recovered from the surprise of Faith's words and walked up to the unconscious Slayer. "She's okay, isn't she?" Buffy said worriedly as she knelt down and put a hand on Faith's cheek. Faith didn't react to it; a good sign that the Stunning Spell remained strong. As Harry watched Buffy worry over Faith, he realized that even though Faith had betrayed all of them, Buffy had a connection to her that wasn't quite so easy for her to overlook.

"Just unconscious," Harry assured her. He looked over to the other side of the room. Angel had gotten to his feet and the others were still eyeing him suspiciously, but they all seemed have realized that he wasn't the Angelus that they had been expecting.

"What's going on here?" Wesley shouted in anger as he looked at the three of them for an explanation. Harry looked over to see that Buffy had decided to ignore the man completely and instead was still watching Faith with a frown on her lips.

Harry turned to Angel in order to get him to explain, but he was too busy worrying about Buffy to be of much use. Harry rolled his eyes before quickly explaining to the others the plan that Giles had arranged earlier and how they had found out that Faith was going behind their backs to the Mayor.

"And why wasn't I informed?" Wesley asked in confusion; he looked a little hurt at the slight in his leadership. Harry just shrugged. He could have gone into a lengthy explanation of how Giles didn't know who he could trust, but then he'd get the uncomfortable questions about why Giles had decided to trust the mysterious wizard that they had only known for days, rather than the people he'd known for years. Harry didn't need the others thinking that he had used magic to force Giles's trust. That would just complicate things. Harry was still surprised that Giles had risked everything in order to keep his word about their full honesty policy. He didn't think that there was much of a chance that the others would believe that same excuse.

Wesley turned to Angel "What did you discover?" Wesley asked as he attempted to continue his interrogation.

Before Angel could respond, Buffy stood up from where she had been kneeling and took charge. "We can discuss that later," she commanded, "We need to figure out what to do with her." She gave the downed slayer one more frowning glance before joining the others.

"She needs help," Angel said with a frown.

"I will inform the Council at once," Wesley responded with conviction.

"You and your Council got us into this mess," Angel rebuked.

Wesley looked offended, "The Council was only trying to help. She killed a man. She needed to be questioned."

"She was just a girl. A girl who accidentally did a terrible thing while doing 'your' job," Angel argued, "and you put her in chains and told her of her guilt."

"We did no such thing," Wesley denied. Angel took a step towards The Watcher in anger and Wesley stumbled back in fright.

"Angel," Buffy said quietly. Her voice had the immediate reaction of calming the angry vampire down. He appeared embarrassed over his actions and skulked back into the shadows before leaning against a wall and going silent.

"You won't call The Watchers Council," Buffy informed Wesley. "If you do, then I'm done. I won't be taking any more orders." Buffy threatened. Wesley didn't seem all that impressed with the threat. He probably didn't believe that The Council could simply be ignored.

"Plus," Xander said with false cheer, "how do you think they'll rate your job performance after they find out that your Slayer turned evil after only working with you for a few months?" Xander teased with a grin.

Wesley paled at the implication as he hasn't before thought of that. "Fine," Wesley relented, "what do you suppose we do? We can't risk her rejoining with the Mayor. He'll be hard enough to stop without a Slayer helping him."

For once, Harry agreed with Wesley. "And you can't throw her in a cell and forget about her either," Harry piped in, even though that was exactly what he thought she deserved for trying to get him killed. Buffy raised an eyebrow at him and he decided to explain, "She's technically 'The Slayer', isn't she? Her staying alive and healthy in prison would stop all other Slayers from being called."

"But we've got Buffy," Willow said loyally. Buffy gave her friend a small smile.

Harry nodded. "Yes, but if something happens to Buffy, then there is no one else," Harry reasoned. Realizing what he had implied, he added a quick 'no offense' to Buffy. She just shrugged as if it didn't matter. Harry grimaced as he thought that she had apparently long gotten used to the idea of dying. He too knew that feeling. Shaking his head, and recovering his thoughts, he proceeded to explain his reasoning, "if something does happen to her, and Faith's the only Slayer left, someone might decide to let an insane homicidal Slayer loose, one who is angry from years of imprisonment. That's beside the fact that Slayers exist for a reason, and the world might be without one for a lifetime if Faith stays safe in a prison cell."

"So we can't jail her, she refuses our help, and although we'd all like to, we can't kill her either," Xander quipped, summarizing the events.

"Are you sure she hasn't done anything that deserves that last one?" Harry asked cautiously. The Mayor clearly had no qualms about hunting down and killing people, but did Faith feel the same way? It was possible that she had committed unforgivable acts while in the service of the Mayor. How many people could they save in the future by making sure that the world always had a Vampire Slayer available? A Vampire Slayer that wasn't a raving lunatic.

"Faith came to me last night. Her whole body shaking," Angel said suddenly. His voice was quiet, yet it still carried throughout the room. "She had demon blood on her hands. I think it must have been the demon who had the Books of Ascension," he paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, "I imagine that it must have been her worst crime so far; killing a demon in cold blood. Otherwise, I doubt it would have affected her so much."

He paused once more to make sure they were all still listening. "I'm going to help her," he said, leaving no room for debate. That didn't stop either Buffy and Wesley from trying, they both opened their mouths to argue, but Angel wasn't done yet. "I was getting through to her before," he argued passionately, "I can get through to her again. It might be your only hope in getting her back in one piece." He gave Buffy a meaningful glance. Faith was on the brink of insanity, and Angel seemed to believe that with one wrong move, she could be lost forever.

Harry started to wonder if perhaps Angel just had a thing for Vampire Slayers. Could it be a manifestation of the vampire's self-loathing which caused him to be attracted to the two people whose's sole duty demanded that they kill him? On the other hand, it was also a possibility that Angel just hoped that if Faith could somehow find redemption for herself, then there was still hope for him too.

Harry just couldn't see how someone who had willfully joined the side of a mass murderer could be saved. He could admit that he was probably a little biased, what with Faith being the reason that he was now on the Mayor's hit list. . . but he also knew that the fate of the world and the line of Slayers was a much more important factor than just wanting revenge.

"Should we really trust the vampire with the well-being of a slayer? I mean. . . a crazy slayer, but still," Xander asked.

Buffy gave him a dirty look. "Not now Xander," she admonished. Xander grew quiet as a frown marred his face. Harry wondered just how much history Xander had with Angel, or perhaps it was Angelus that he held such a grudge against?

"You really think you can help her?" Willow asked quietly. "after everything that she's done?" Her question mirrored Harry's own thoughts.

Angel gave her a determined nod. "When Faith arrived in Sunnydale, she hated vampires and demons. Buffy told me that her last Watcher got killed and that the two seemed to be have been close. I imagine that what she once saw as a duty, similar to what Buffy herself sees, quickly turned into anger and hatred when her Watcher died. Just imagine what Buffy would become if she lost all of you," Angel said, growing somber at his own words. Harry watched as everyone grew pale and Buffy looked like she was going to be sick. Angel continued, "And that was working fine for her for awhile. Buffy told me that she was a tad reckless and that she made sure not to grow emotionally attached to anyone, but she was able to get her job done. That was until she killed a man and saw herself become something she hated."

Wesley scoffed at Angel's reasoning. "If she hated herself for what she did, then why didn't she just let The Watchers Council take her or just run? Why would she join up with the same creatures that you say she hates so much?" Wesley asked reasonably, unable to follow Angel's logic. Harry frowned as he too tried and failed to follow Angel's line of thinking. It appeared that Angel had put far more thought into it. Or perhaps he was simply speaking from experience.

Angel shrugged, "The Council's orders got her first Watcher killed. She then put her trust in her second Watcher, who turned out to be an evil power hungry impostor. Why would she trust them with her life? Besides, she needed to be back in Sunnydale. Sunnydale held the one person that she trusted, someone she hoped would stop her." Angel gave BUffy an all telling glance, "Someone who had the ability to stop her."

"She would have kept going," Buffy said in realization.

Angel agreed, "She would have kept escalating things until you felt like there was no other choice. She probably could have taken any one of you out, but she didn't. She didn't want to hurt any of you. Instead, she wanted Buffy to hurt her and was trying to force the issue. In her mind, she deserved nothing else."

"You really think you can get through to her?" Wesley said, showing the first signs of actual concern for Faith.

"It will take me some time," Angel began, "The hardest part will be trying to convince her of all of this. In her mind, I'm sure she's still trying to convince herself that she wants to help the Mayor kill people and destroy Sunnydale. I will first have to make her see the truth, and then hopefully she'll regret her actions enough to atone for them."

Buffy fidgeted, looking uncomfortable with the relationship that Angel and Faith seemed to share. Angel understood Faith in a way that she couldn't fathom, and that meant that Faith would understand Angel in a way that Buffy didn't, and that thought seemed to upset her greatly. Although obviously distraught with the idea of Angel spending time alone with Faith, Buffy didn't immediately object to the idea. She didn't seem to have any better solution on how to deal with Faith.

"You won't be able to stay in town," Harry said quietly as he tried to think things through after Angel's surprising decision. He still didn't agree that this was the right move, but it really wasn't his place to tell them how to handle someone who had once been their friend. He could eventually get over the fact that she had sold him out. Harry imagined she wasn't the one to send the vampires. It was possible she had simply grown attached to the wrong man. A man bent on wiping out a city and killing any who stood in his way.

Angel nodded, "I know."

"What do you mean?" Willow asked as she saw the crestfallen look on Buffy's face.

"The Mayor," Buffy said with a mournful sigh, "he'll come looking for her. Either because he actually cares about her." She made a noise of disgust in her throat. "Or to stop her from talking." It was clear which outcome she thought more likely.

"Perhaps Harry could hide Angel and Faith?" Willow propositioned hopefully.

Harry thought about it for a moment. He could perhaps set a perimeter ward around the mansion in order to notify Angel that someone was coming, but it would get triggered by anything crossing it. Harry imagined Angel didn't want to have to prepare to fight or run every time a wild animal got too close to the house. It would take some work and more understanding of the demons of this world before he could set up a ward that only detected those types of monsters. He could also set up a handful of wards that would require the Mayor to bring the wards down with force, but that was relying on a lot of unknowns and assumptions. Anya had mentioned that no 'human' could teleport, meaning things in this world could. Would Apparition wards prevent that? Would Harry's own protective wards be hard to penetrate, or was there magic in this world that could negate it? Did the Mayor have the means of summoning something that could get through any ward that Harry set up? Harry didn't know any of this, and not knowing made it far too risky.

The Fidelius Charm would be the best solution. It would be virtually impossible to break his wards or any barriers to get to someone if no one could see or remember where they were. Unfortunately, Harry had not bothered to learn how to cast it. An action he was already regretting.

"I have a spell that could work but I have no idea how to cast it," Harry admitted to them. There was one other option. "The Disillusionment Charm could work," Harry realized, "I would have to cast it on the area every day to keep it active, and you'll have to head to another building; The Mayor already knows about this place. The Charm would turn your place invisible, which could pose a problem if someone comes along expecting a house and instead sees nothing. More so if they start walking into things that they can't see. Magic can prevent most of that, but it could take just one person to talk about an invisible house before the Mayor comes calling."

After Harry informed Angel of his options, the vampire took a minute to think about it. He seemed to be trying to weigh the pros and cons of such an arrangement. Harry already knew that they didn't add up in Buffy's favor. There were too many cons to list, yet his close proximity to Buffy would be the only pro. The risk was too great and Harry could tell that Angel realized that himself when he frowned.

"Thank you, but I think it would be better if the Mayor was just completely out of Faith's reach. It might be hard for her to let go if she has something to hold on to, and I don't know how close she got to him or how much he means to her," Angel reasoned.

Harry watched as Buffy remained silent without objection. Harry realized then that she was merely waiting to get Angel alone to discuss the matter in private. "We should go and let Giles know everything is okay," Harry said, figuring it was about time that Buffy and Angel were left to themselves. Angel's plan wasn't going to be final until they talked it over among themselves. "He'll probably want to know everything you learned from Faith today, Angel," Harry added as a reminder.

Angel nodded. "He'll know everything I do before I leave," Angel reassured him. He glanced at Faith before looking back, "How long will she remain like that?"

Harry shrugged. "The ropes will last a couple day or so before disappearing. As for the Stunning spell I used? A wizard would be unconscious for a few hours, but I'm not sure about a Slayer. Let me know, would you?" Harry asked with a mischievous grin, a grin that Buffy's noticed. She reacted with a daring stare. Harry just smiled in response.

He turned back to the others, "Let's go, mustn't keep Giles waiting." Many of the others seemed to know why they were being rushed out. They too could see the warning signs of a fight between Buffy and Angel.

Wesley wasn't so sure. "I can't just . . ." he said, trailing off, "she's my Slayer . . . I'm responsible . . ." He seemed to be waging an internal debate. A dark haired girl that Harry hadn't seen before walked up and grabbed his arm and began to tug him out of the door.

"C'mon Wesley," she said quietly, "you said you were going to help me with that English homework."

This seemed to bring him out of his personal struggle. "I did?" he asked confusedly before his eyes opened in surprise and delight, "yes . . . I did. Very well."

They walked outside and Harry could see a couple of vehicles waiting for them, one being Oz's van. Harry held back. "I'll meet you all there," he said. He'd much rather just Apparate there than spend an unnecessary amount of time traveling by vehicle. Willow seemed to understand what he was about to do and she turned around excitedly.

"Wait! You're going to teleport, aren't you? Can I come? Buffy said you could teleport others," Willow asked quickly in excitement. Harry looked up at Oz who was smiling back in amusement. He met Harry's gaze and nodded in the unasked question; Harry didn't want to step on anyone's toes.

"Very well," Harry said with a sigh as he tried to hide his amusement. It was very rare to see someone so enthusiastic about magic. The last person Harry saw so excited about it was an eleven-year-old Hermione. It had taken her only a few months before the excitement wore off and it had simply turned into another branch of learning.

"You ready?" Harry asked her.

"Let's do it," she said, nodding quickly. Harry grabbed her shoulder and quickly did as he was told.

They appeared back in the library. Willow fell harshly against him as she turned green. Her legs collapsed underneath her and Harry held her up. It took her much longer to recover than it had taken Buffy. Finally, she found her footing and stepped away from him. Her greenish tint from nausea disappeared as her face turned red.

"Sorry," she muttered.

Harry just shrugged. "Everyone reacts differently for their first time."

"That was horrible," she admitted. She looked around in awe at their surroundings. "But it saves so much time. Definitely worth it."

Harry laughed, "You tend to get used to it. If you do it again, it won't be so bad."

She smiled, taking reassurance in that fact. "How many people can you bring at once?" Willow asked academically as they walked out from behind the bookcases and sat at the table.

"Only two," Harry answered, "I need to be able to grab them or have them grab my arm."

Harry watched as her excited grin from the apparating adventure turned into a frown. "I'm a little jealous," she admitted, "I'll never be able to do some of that stuff."

Harry joined her in frowning at her abrupt change in mood. "You want to know something?" Harry said secretively, "I think the magic in this world has a lot of potential."

"You think?" she asked hopefully.

Harry nodded and watched as she perked up once again. Giles came out of his office a moment later and joined them. Harry quickly explained that everything was alright and that they even managed to capture Faith. He then told Giles that Buffy or Angel would be by later to explain more since they hadn't been able to inform anyone what they had learned from their ruse.

Harry took out his stick and began another session of carving his wand. There was nothing better to do while waiting for everyone else to show up.

* * *

Hours later Buffy returned without Angel, but she was there for only one reason, and that was to explain what they had learned during Angel's charade.

Faith seemed to have been in on the plan to bring Angelus back from the very beginning. It even seemed to have been her idea. Her goal was to both take Angel away from Buffy as well as have him for herself. Angel reasoned that her true goal was to get Buffy so upset that she wouldn't think twice about fighting her to the death.

The Mayor however just wanted another servant. Angel seemed convinced that even if they did manage to bring the Angelus out of him, that Angelus was not the type of vampire that would have happily served a master, and he probably would have killed Faith the first chance he got. Which led Angel to believe that The Mayor was either completely insane, or he didn't care at all about Faith or her well-being.

Angel pretended to be interested in joining up with them and was even able to discover a few interesting things. The first thing was that Faith had indeed taken The Books of Ascension from the demon and had killed him in the process. The books, unfortunately, were now in the possession of the Mayor.

Angel hadn't been able to confirm that the Mayor was the one who had sent the vampires to kill Harry, but it was now a much safer bet that Faith had indeed told the Mayor, who had decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to have a powerful wizard around while he was preparing for a magical ritual. This made the others think that it was likely that he would try to kill Harry. They even had Harry promise them that he would remain careful.

Another interesting tidbit was the fact that the Mayor seemed to be immortal. Oz and the others found evidence that the Mayor has been around since the 1800's, perhaps even longer and hadn't aged a day. Along with his apparent immortality, he also appeared to be invulnerable. Angel had impaled the man's palm with a letter opener, and Angel watched in shock as the Mayor was completely healed in only seconds. No demon or vampire could boast at having such powers. Harry knew that that level of healing was well within his own abilities, but Angel had said that the Mayor uttered no words nor performed any spell to make it happen. The healing had been instantaneous.

If you added everything up, the outcome didn't look very good. The Mayor was immortal, invulnerable, and seemed hell bent on performing this Ascension Ritual that no one knew how to stop or even seemed to even know what it would do. The only thing that they were sure of was that it would more than likely cause the destruction of Sunnydale, and possibly even destruction on a much grander scale.

Harry started brainstorming ideas of his own in ways to stop the man, but it was hard to come up with a solution when he knew next to nothing. Was the man truly invulnerable, or did he just have excellent healing abilities? Did the man have a soul? Could a Killing Curse work in ripping the soul from his body while killing him in the process? There were just too many questions and not enough answers. Harry knew that if it looked like this 'Ascension' was about to happen, then he would proceed to go through with each and every option available to him, but until then, it would be best to gather more information in order to work out a proper plan.

If they knew where the Mayor was hiding the books, then it would be a simple matter to steal them back. Many potential plans began to formulate in his mind, but they all required more time to be planned properly.

After Buffy explained all that she knew of the group, she left again. She and Angel apparently had a lot left to discuss.

The group broke up soon after, each heading home, except for Harry who headed back to Giles's Apartment. He had a lot of work to do.


	8. Chapter Eight : Dream Turned Nightmare

_Author Notes - This is a long one. The longest chapter yet at about 8,500 words. The only reason that it's out so soon is that I had most of it written already. It took me a week to finish and edit it. Don't expect weekly updates in the future. However, It could happen if I get that writer's itch I hear so much about._

 _Thank you all for the reviews for Chapter Seven. They were appreciated._

 _Onward to..._

* * *

Chapter Eight

It had been almost a week since Angel left town with Faith. Harry knew that Buffy must have tried her hardest to get Angel to stay and let someone else take responsibility for the wayward Slayer, but he had refused. Instead, he left town with Faith that very night without saying a word to anyone else. Angel had only told Buffy where he was headed, and she had not seen a reason to spread that secret. Buffy had assured them all that Angel would make sure not to attract any attention and would come back when he felt that Faith was ready to do so. Buffy and Angel must have understood that with every person who knew the location of Faith, the risk of being discovered by The Mayor grew; for secrets were never known to remain secrets for long.

It was very likely that Wesley hadn't kept his word about not getting The Council involved. Harry would have been surprised if the coward lasted more than a day before caving and telling them everything. Harry didn't think that the threat of being seen as incompetent had swayed Wesley for very long. Harry didn't know if Buffy would keep her word on her threat to quit the Council, but in the end, it hardly mattered to him. Perhaps a little selfishly, he hoped that the distraction of Faith's disappearance and Buffy's threat would buy him a bit of time before The Council shifted their worries onto him. It would give him enough time to prepare for the worst.

Harry had thought about asking Angel for permission to crash at his place while he was away, but the vampire left before Harry got the chance. He figured that staying there without permission wouldn't be good for the fragile trust that he had built with the others, so he continued to stay at Giles's place. It was probably for the best anyway, Angel's home would most likely be under constant surveillance in hopes that they could catch Angel returning to Sunnydale. Giles never told the others about where Harry was staying and Harry hoped that that secrecy would keep Giles's place off the target list of the both the Mayor and The Watcher's Council. Either way, he eventually needed to find some place of his own to stay. He didn't enjoy putting Giles in unnecessary danger.

However, besides the potential threat to Giles, Harry thought that the arrangement he had with the older man was working out quite well. Giles was away at work or on Watcher duty a majority of the time and only really came home to sleep, which meant Harry had the place mostly to himself during the day.

Harry hadn't seen anyone else during this time and had found himself alone for a majority of the week while working on his wand among other things. It was hard for Harry to find a reason to just hang out with anyone else when he didn't go to school with them or have anything at all in common with them. Buffy and he both shared the whole 'chosen' thing but it was hardly a conversation starter. He was an outsider and he knew it. After a week alone, Harry would admit that it had started to get lonely. Fortunately, this was something he was quite used to.

The idea that just around the corner there was a possibility of a large apocalyptic fight to the death kept him from becoming too solemn during his solitude.

However, even though Harry hadn't ever really been part of their group, Giles was still kind enough to give him a nightly status update. Apparently, because of the departure of Angel, Buffy was using her time during the day sulking around quite depressingly. However, at night, she was spending a lot of time around city hall in hopes of finding clues to the Mayor's activities while looking out for any of his henchmen. Harry imagined that any unlucky vampire that had crossed her path that week had been beaten up a little harder and longer than usual. Angel had called Buffy a few times throughout the week, but only to keep them updated. He informed them that he was okay and that Faith was improving, but he refused to say much else.

As for Harry himself, well, he had been right in his prediction that a wand would not be an easy thing to craft and he was now on his sixth attempt. He had snapped the first one right in half while trying to make it straight and had given the second one a nice warped tip that would make spell casting virtually impossible. The next three had been useable but unimpressive. One was too bulky, another too short, and the third's handle was the most uncomfortable wand he had ever had the displeasure of holding. Each failure was met with Harry quitting the process for the day, and instead, he would focus on another project of his.

Earlier that week, when Willow had questioned whether Harry had a way to hide Angel and Faith, he was a little disappointed in himself for never taking the time to learn how to cast the Fidelius Charm. It was a useful charm to know, and Harry had delayed learning it for one reason or another. Fortunately, he knew quite a bit of charm theory, as it was one of his stronger subjects. Another bonus was the fact that the Fidelius was a charm favored by criminal syndicates. During his Auror training, there was a whole week of training with instructions on finding the weaknesses of the charm. Among them were detailed ways that it could be exploited and ways to sniff out a secret keeper. During these lessons, he had glanced at the instructions of casting the charm many times. It was not a charm that Aurors were expected to learn, and Harry had been busy with another project at the time. Amusingly enough, if he recalled correctly, it was around that time that he had been fascinated with the idea of creating a staff.

Unlike Hermione, he did not have anything even resembling an eidetic memory and couldn't just recall those instructions back into his mind. But, even without the ability to recall from memory the complete spell, he was still able to make a lot of progress on reconstructing it. He was only able to remember bits and pieces from the instruction manual, but the pieces he did not know were slowly taking form with the inclusion of a lot of educated guess work. It was proving to require quite a lot of work, but that was hardly going to stop him. It didn't matter how long it took him to recreate the charm, it was far too useful of a spell to give up on. With a trusted secret keeper, he would be able to sleep, eat, and do magic in peace without even a shred of fear that someone would walk in or attack him. At the moment a possible attack was just far too likely to ignore.

Harry figured that soon enough the Mayor would get sick of waiting for Faith to return and would instead seek revenge on the few people who had the means to oppose him; which boiled down to Buffy and himself. With Angel gone, they were the only two real threats left to the Mayor's plans. Buffy's powers and limitations were well known to the Mayor and he had not seen a reason to take her out before, so it seemed reasonable that he did not see her as much of a threat. Harry, however, was an unknown obstacle, and that was probably why he had immediately sent two of his hired hands to see what they could learn. As long as the vampire that had escaped the attack at the abandoned factory returned to his master, then the Mayor knew that Harry was more than just a run of the mill wizard. Harry had proved that he was a threat, and he didn't think the Mayor had any plans of just letting him be.

Another bonus to learning the Fidelius would be the ability to bring Angel back into the fold. If Harry could protect any place with a Fidelius charm, then Angel's reasons for remaining away wouldn't be as strong. Having another fighter in town to help out would only be a good thing. Though this would rely on Angel's ability to get through to Faith and keep her from going back to serving the Mayor.

Although he was making steady progress on both the Fidelius Charm as well as his wand crafting, the final piece of the puzzle to completing the charm was still eluding him. He'd been able to piece together the ritual, including the incantation, the wand movements, and even the intent required. However, he was stuck on the process of how to choose a secret keeper. Was the Keeper meant to be part of the ritual, or was the Keeper merely the person who the caster told first? The only thing Harry knew was that the main draw back to using the Fidelius Charm was that the secret keeper couldn't spend too much time inside of the Fidelius Charm without it collapsing. The secret had to be out in the world, not hiding inside of the very charm it was protecting. He couldn't be the Secret Keeper of his own location; just as his parents hadn't been able to be their own. If this wasn't so, then perhaps that would have been enough to save his parents from their fates. This meant that you not only had to trust someone with your secret but that the same person you trusted was forced to see less of you.

His main worry at the moment was that the Secret Keeper had to be a witch or wizard. This alone would make the charm useless in this universe unless he found a way to modify it enough to work regardless. He was just about at the end of what he could do alone with the recreation of the spell. It was almost time to actually start experimenting with it, but he would need someone to help him; to take the role as the Secret Keeper. He already had the perfect someone in mind; but it would have to wait until another time, for it was already well into the night. Harry gathered the large collection of papers scattered across the table; all with hand written notes about the Fidelius scrawled onto them. He piled them up into a neat pile before shrinking them and sticking them into his pocket.

Instead of continuing his Fidelius work, he brought out his sixth crafted wand attempt of the week. A little bit of wand carving before bed always had the tendency of putting him to sleep. He found himself using it as a sleeping aid more and more when wand movements, incantations, and magic theory refused to leave his mind at night. As he sat down, ready to get started on his personal sleep therapy, the phone rang.

It was Giles, and his voice sounded urgent; he needed Harry's help. The thought of sleep left his mind instantly as the expectation of a possible upcoming fight took its spot and brightened his mood. He hastily placed the phone down and apparated to the school library.

Harry walked out from his hiding spot and found Giles working on a project in the middle of the library. There were flasks, ingredients, and books scattered across the table, nearly covering it completely. With one glance at Giles, Harry realized that whatever was happening was serious, for the man looked like death. His face was pale, his hair greasy and his eyes were sunken. It was the face of someone going mad with worry. Giles wore the same expression that Harry had seen many times on the face of Hermione; days before school exams.

Harry gave the man a questioning look wondering why he had been summoned. Giles began to explain as he fumbled for specific ingredients and added them to the collection sitting on the table. Although obviously distracted with the work, Giles still managed to speak fast, his words coming out quicker than what Harry thought possible. So quick that Harry imagined that he missed at least a fourth of them. Still, he was able to grasp an understanding of the situation. Buffy had been fighting a large demon the night before, and during the kill, she got some of its blood on her. The blood had been absorbed into her skin and because of that, she was developing telepathic abilities. The abilities were fun for her at first but quickly turned nightmarish as she could no longer control who or how many thoughts she was hearing. Giles would soon have an antidote ready, but the last ingredient called for the fresh heart of a demon of the same species. With the Slayer out of commission, Harry seemed to be their only hope in being able to kill a demon of that size.

After a moment of thinking about the situation that Buffy and the others found themselves in, Harry couldn't do anything but frown. "I have no idea where I'd even start looking for the demon," Harry answered honestly, "have you asked Buffy for Angel's number?"

Giles let out a long sigh, "We finally got in touch with him, but he said that by the time he'd make it back it would be daylight. I downplayed how serious it was once he told me that. If we wait until tomorrow it'll be too late."

"Too late?" Harry asked. He didn't understand how this ability of hers could possibly be fatal.

"She heard someone think about murdering all of the students tomorrow; she was pretty adamant that whoever thought it, meant it. The others are trying to find out who it was, but they haven't made much progress," Giles said quickly, as he flipped through a new book. From the title it looked like a demon encyclopedia, specifically discussing the well-known habitats of specific demons.

The easiest option for Harry would be to wait and hope that Giles found a potential location of the demon, and then begin a hunt. However, as Harry thought about what was happening to Buffy, he began to think of a possible solution. "Where's Buffy now? Can I see her?" he asked, "I might be able to help in another way."

Giles looked up in hope, "She's home with her mother. Let me give her a call to tell her that you are coming." He calmed himself with a few deep breaths before picking up the phone and dialing a number. The call was brief and Harry was able to overhear Giles giving Buffy's mother no promises that Harry could help her daughter; something he was thankful for. Once the phone call was done, Harry once again asked for permission to enter the older man's mind. He had never been to Buffy's home and didn't think Giles would want him to waste time getting there.

Giles nodded his consent without hesitation. Harry would have liked to believe that he had earned the man's absolute trust, but he thought if far more likely that Giles was just too worried to care.

Giles closed his eyes to collect his thoughts. He opened them a moment later. "Go on," he said. Harry obliged as he traveled into the older man's mind. Although Harry knew that Giles had tried hard to gather his thoughts, the librarian's memories were once again flying at him in rapid succession. One after another and Harry noticed an immediate theme; they all contained images of Buffy. Harry tried not to pay attention to any of them, but he was still able to see glimpses of the Slayer fighting, laughing, smiling and even crying. Harry ignored them all and gave the man time to gather his thoughts. It was a full minute later that Giles finally focused and Harry was able to find the proper memory. He canceled the connection and focused solely on that one memory as he disappeared from the school before reappearing on the front porch of a two story suburban home.

Where as the Dursley's made sure their garden was immaculate and the grass cut even, Buffy's family didn't seem to care about any of that. The grass was too long to be considered a lawn and the large trees, hedges and weeds running along the foundation looked like they hadn't been touched for over a year. It was a white house with black roofing and looked far more like a home lived in than the houses on privet drive ever did.

Before Harry could do anything else, he felt a sudden forceful intrusion into his mind. Remembering his Occlumency lessons, he cleared his mind a moment later. The intrusion went away. As a test, Harry focused on his mental shield of nothingness and slowly brought it down and was not surprised to find that the intrusion immediately returned. He hastily brought the shield back up and felt it retreat once again. It was very strange that something within Buffy could sense his presence and intrude into his thoughts so quickly. Something that powerful was completely unheard of in his world for practitioners of the mental arts.

Harry knocked on the door and it opened swiftly after just a moment. An attractive middle aged blonde woman was on the other side. Harry could immediately see the resemblance between her and Buffy.

"Harry Potter?" she questioned.

Harry nodded as she held the door open and stepped aside. There was no direct invitation, and Harry knew that if he was a vampire, he wouldn't be able to get inside. He imagined it was a test that she had done before. He stepped inside and closed the door.

"She's upstairs," she said. Her forehead was wrinkled with worry. "You can help her?"

"I can try," he replied, making sure not to make any promises. Harry followed the mother up the stairs.

"It's Joyce by the way." she mumbled as they made their way to the second floor.

"Perhaps we can officially meet under better circumstances." Harry offered. She nodded as they reached a door.

"I shouldn't go in. She gets worse when anyone gets near her," she said as she bit her lip.

Harry thanked her and walked into the room. His first impression was that the room was rather ordinary. A dresser was propped up against one of the white walls and on the other side of the room sat a large white bed. The only strange thing there was Buffy. She was currently under the covers, but she wasn't asleep. Although with the lack of response to his entrance, Harry wouldn't call her awake either. Rather she was lost in her own world, tossing and turning while groaning in misery. Harry could feel the pressure build on his Occlumency shield. Now that Harry was close, the probe seemed to have renewed its efforts in finding a way through the barrier; as if it had a mind of its own. After a handful of seconds of it trying and failing to find a way into his mind, it gave up and disappeared completely.

Harry frowned as he watched Buffy continue to suffer. Instead of the visions of memories you'd get with standard Legilimency, she was having a person's thoughts immediately projected into her mind. This neat trick that she had inherited from the demon to hear what others were thinking seemed to have quickly turned into a maddening tidal wave of thoughts pounding into her mind. It was almost like she had an infinite amount of Legilimen probes expanding out and into the minds of everyone within miles. The minds of just her mother and her neighbors wouldn't be able to do this to her. The power would have to be much farther reaching than that, and Harry thought that it was quite extraordinary.

During Giles's earlier explanation of the situation, he had reasoned that the demon's ability of telepathy was an evolutionary trait. Harry thought that even if that was true, it didn't explain it all. As far as he knew there was nothing in science that could even support the idea of someone projecting their thoughts and another person hearing them. Harry's own conclusion was that this particular demonic species was magical and that this telepathy of theirs was a magical ability. Similar to how a Parselmouth had their own unique form of magic given to them genetically, Harry imagined this type of demon also passed down this magical telepathic trait to its offspring. The only difference being that they apparently had the ability to spread this ability to others through their blood. The way that it could do this made Harry think that it could also be seen as a defensive trait. If the attacker couldn't handle the power, then it would be incapacitated quite quickly; a good way to punish anything that even dared to wound it. If Buffy encountered a similar demon in the future, I imagine she'd be quite a bit more cautious.

The way that his Occlumency shields were able to block her ability to hear his thoughts just made him more confident that his theory was correct. If it was magic causing this, then magic would hopefully be able to help her make it stop. Getting to work, Harry imagined a barrier that would encompass Buffy's entire bed. He used his left hand to trace where the magical shield would appear and raised up his other hand; his wand at the ready. As he circled the bed, he chanted the incantation for the protective ward, "Protego Totalum."

As he finished circling the bed, a flash of light signaled the completion of the spell and a bright golden dome showed itself for only a moment before returning to its transparent state. Harry watched Buffy for anything that would indicate that she was improving and let out a breath when he noticed that she had stopped fidgeting and moaning in pain. It took her a minute, but eventually, her face became more relaxed and her eyes flashed open.

"They're gone," she said in surprise and relief. Harry smiled as he called out to Joyce. Buffy's mother came rushing in as Buffy herself sat up in bed. Joyce ran to her daughter's side before engulfing Buffy in a hug. Harry could see tears on her face.

"I'm so relieved," Joyce said, explaining her tears.

Buffy winced as new thoughts appeared in her mind. "I know," she murmured in confusion, "I can still hear you."

Joyce jumped back as she began to fear that she had hurt her daughter. They both turned to Harry for an explanation.

"There is a magical barrier around your bed," Harry explained, "you'll be able to hear the thoughts of any who pass through it. Also, if you leave your bed then they'll all come rushing back."

"I'll be stuck here forever?" Buffy asked in horror as a life trapped in her bed flashed before her eyes. Her thoughts quickly turned to the people who needed her help. "I can't stay here. People are going to die."

Harry quickly tried to relieve her worries, "Giles has found a cure, but it requires your help. I have a way to make you mobile, but I wanted to make sure it would work first. The barrier around your bed was just a test."

Buffy's shoulders sagged in relief. "I thought this ability was a gift," Buffy admitted with a sardonic laugh and Harry gave her a weak smile. If the situation was reversed, then he imagined that he too would have been overjoyed to hear what those around him were thinking.

"Do you have a necklace that I could borrow?" Harry asked as he prepared to fix Buffy's immobility. "Preferably one that you wouldn't mind losing?"

Buffy nodded and instructed her mother to get a specific piece from her drawer. Joyce found it a moment later and handed it to Harry. It had a small heart medallion at the end of it and seemed to be made of fake gold. It looked like something Buffy might have worn when she was younger. Harry sat on the floor cross legged and closed his eyes to mentally prepare himself.

After a few minutes, he opened them and began to work. Harry held the necklace close to his wand as he magically carved three runes onto the front of the medallion. They were the standard runes for Protection, Power, and Containment. It was a very simple construct, but it was all that Harry figured would be required. As he finished carving the runes, he looked up. Buffy and Joyce were watching him intently, both hoping that whatever he was doing would work. Harry placed his wand on the necklace and, for the second time that night, incanted, "Protego Totalum."

This was a much different shield than the first around her bed had been. The first was stationary. Nothing could move it and magic couldn't pass through it, but it was fragile and easy to break. It could repel and trap all magic, but if its foundation was changed in any way, it would fall. All anyone would need to do was break one floorboard beneath it and it would shatter. Normally, the necklace wouldn't be able to support a shield spell, but the runes he had carved would allow the necklace to keep a stable shield. The necklace would shield anything within two feet of it, which would be enough to completely cover the user's head. The only way to destroy it would be to break the necklace itself or overpower it with magic. The drawback was that because of the manner in which Buffy was constantly having invisible mental probes pounding into the shield, a simple shield just wouldn't last long. In order to keep it strong and active, Harry would need to channel it. His wand hummed in his hand as the spell remained active. He could feel the small continuous drain on his magic.

He could have instead enchanted the necklace with a much stronger shield, but it would have taken him the night or so to combine the proper runes together and weave them with the proper spells. It would require the whole night because of the fact that he was, quite frankly, a complete novice when it came to runecraft. Much of the work would be figuring it out on the spot through trial and error. And though working all night on getting a fully independent medallion to function as a magical head shield would have been an interesting project for Harry, he figured that it was far more prudent to get to this demon as quick as possible. Even if Harry worked all night on manufacturing a stronger shield for Buffy, he still wouldn't be able to estimate how long it would hold. He had no experience with the magic that Buffy was currently emitting, so he was clueless as to how much power the necklace would require.

Regardless of how crude the medallion he had made was, the action of him channeling the shield would allow him to know when it was going to break; for it would only break when Harry could no longer hold it. This would at least give him plenty of warning in order to prepare another option.

Harry got up from the floor and handed the necklace to Buffy. "This should protect you for now but I will need to remain close or the protection will fall."

Buffy took the necklace gingerly. Harry watched as she traced the carved runes with her finger before shrugging and placing it around her neck. She cautiously left the bed as she prepared for a mental assault. The tension in her shoulders visibly relaxed as the necklace succeeded at keeping the thoughts away. Joyce seemed to have realized that it was working because she immediately walked across the room and gave Harry a quick and fierce hug, causing him to blush at the unexpected show of affection.

"Now, what did Giles say?" Buffy asked as Joyce left the room, presumably to go to bed. The emotional roller coaster seemed to have worn her out.

"We need a heart from the same kind of demon that did this to you," Harry explained. "You said there was another one?"

She confirmed it with a nod before rushing over to her closet where she took out a large wooden chest. The lid opened to reveal a variety of weapons and objects. She grabbed a sword and a knife. It was at that moment that Harry noticed that she was wearing a pair of pink pajamas and cracked a grin at the rather girly outfit. After putting her chest of weapons back into her closet, she rushed him out of the room so she could change.

She emerged a minute later in jeans and a red shirt, with a strange expression on her face. She flew past him and began down the stairs. She already seemed to have a destination in mind.

"Giles wanted me to kill it, but I had no idea where to even begin looking," Harry explained as he followed her down the stairs and out of the house.

"I can feel it," Buffy said in confusion as a flash of worry appeared on her face.

"Really?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"That'll go away too right?" she asked hopefully. Harry just shrugged. Giles wasn't even sure the potion would work at all, but Harry was hardly going to tell her that.

"Maybe a part of their telepathy is the ability to sense their own kind," Harry said thoughtfully, "it would make sense if they were social creatures. Without a mouth to speak, it would be hard to find others. If you killing the thing doesn't stop the connection then I imagine the cure would."

Harry followed her as she turned swiftly and headed into a large park. "Why isn't this magic necklace stopping it?" Buffy asked she briefly grabbed a hold of the amulet.

"My magic is protecting your chest and head, so no thoughts can make it through. If the ability is in your blood, then I guess your whole body can feel the connection." Harry reasoned.

Buffy stopped abruptly. "How close do you need to be before the magic stops working?" she whispered.

"Just in eyesight," Harry answered as he scanned the area for any signs of the demon. There were a few light posts around so it wasn't completely dark, which was a good thing, as his wand was far too preoccupied to cast a lighting charm. "Is it here?" Harry whispered. Buffy answered with a nod as she peered into the distance. Harry thought it was strange that the demon was so close to Buffy's house. He had thought that they would have had to travel far longer to find the mysterious location of the beast. "Strange that it's so close. I wonder if it can also feel you. Maybe it's this close because it's also following this connection that you two share. Perhaps it thinks you're one of them," Harry muttered before frowning deeply, "that's kind of sad if you think about it."

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "Stay back and don't do anything. I don't want to have to worry about you hitting me," she said while giving the wand in his hand an untrusting look. Harry nodded but felt slightly offended that she seemed to think his aim was that terrible. He wouldn't be able to do much anyway because he wasn't sure just how long the amulet would last without a constant connection. If the amulet's shield fell, then Buffy would no doubt collapse to the ground in that same instant. He wouldn't ever hear the end of it if he accidentally crippled Buffy while she was in the middle of fighting a demon.

As they moved forward, Harry began to feel the sharp probing of a mental link. At first, he thought Buffy's necklace was failing but then realized that it wasn't Buffy trying to get into his mind. The demon was close, and its mental projection had found him. Harry blocked the attack but knew that his presence was most likely still felt by the demon. His mind had remained closed, but the demon still knew he was there.

Buffy moved forward slowly, but she never had to backtrack or seemed confused as to where her target was. Harry saw the grip on her sword tighten as the Demon leaped out from behind a tree. The demon's eyes were focused on Harry but seemed surprised that Buffy was even there. It took a step back as Buffy raised her weapon. It didn't hesitate for even a moment before it turned around and started to run in a hasty retreat. It took Buffy a moment overcome her shock at the retreating demon before she started to give chase. Harry broke into a run of his own to keep up with the two.

Harry knew right away why it was running. "It relies on hearing our thoughts!" he shouted to Buffy, "it's confused."

Harry knew Buffy had heard him, but she didn't respond. She was far too focused on the chase and catching up with the demon. The demon was larger with a much longer stride, but it's bulk only seemed to slow it down. Buffy was able to catch up to it before it could find safety in the heavily wooded area, where the lack of light would impair Buffy. Harry had fallen a bit behind but was still well within the safe distance required to keep her necklace active. Harry watched as Buffy pulled alongside the retreating demon before tackling it to the ground. Buffy was the first to rise and immediately went for a decapitation with a strong swing of her sword. The demon managed to block the blow with its forearm. The scales on its arm prevented the limb from being severed, but a flash of blood implied that it was still a nasty wound. The demon closed the distance to Buffy and managed to throw her to the ground. However, instead of re-engaging with her, the demon refocused its attention on Harry instead and moved in his direction. Before it could make it more than a step, Harry saw a flash of red as the demon fell to its knees. Buffy had managed to slice the back of the creatures leg with the far reaching sword. It struggled to get back to its feet, but Buffy got their first. With one more swing of her sword, the demons head dropped to the ground.

"It went straight for you," Buffy said with a frown at the dead demon, "rude."

Harry let out a bark of laughter. "Maybe it sensed the magic," he reasoned with a shrug. It wasn't able to read either of their minds, so Harry didn't quite understand why it would try to go for him first. Another option was that although it could sense Harry's presence, the shield around Buffy's head had prevented the probe from even recognizing her. Or perhaps, he just seemed like an easy target.

Buffy grimaced as she took out the knife she had brought and knelt next to the demon. She sighed deeply at the impending task before she began to stab into the chest area with long reluctant strokes. She was using one hand to carve out the heart while her left hand had reached up to plug her nose.

Deciding not to waste the opportunity, Harry conjured up a large flask while making sure to keep the link with the necklace in tact. He levitated it near the demon's open neck wound and let the flask collect as much of the bleeding demon as it could. The bleeding soon stopped and Harry cleaned up any excess blood and corked the flask. He then made it unbreakable. He would have to transfer the blood to another permanent container later on, but it would do for now.

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked suspiciously as she eyed the flask.

"This turned you into a telepath," Harry said plainly, "imagine if I could learn how to control it."

"You came for the blood," Buffy said in realization. Harry frowned in response.

"No, I came to help," he began, defending himself, "I just don't think it should go to waste."

She grunted in response but Harry could tell that she didn't quite believe him. Harry continued to frown at her. It was the truth and it bothered him that she would believe otherwise. Harry wasn't sure why it bothered him, but it did. He eyed the flask in his hand. The blood would most likely stay there and remain useless. It would be very risky to experiment with it without having a theory on how to control the side effects. It would also be dangerous to keep it in case someone else got a hold of it and accidentally touched it. It would then become his responsibility to find another demon in order to find a second heart to complete a cure. He supposed if he did think of a way to use the blood to his advantage, he could always search for a similar demon somewhere. That would be risky though because It was possible that the one lying dead on the ground was the last of its species. Was it worth the risk?

Deciding that he had far more important things to do than worry about the flask of blood, Harry vanished it along with all the blood that it held. Harry tried to convince himself that he had changed his mind about the blood because it was simply too dangerous and that it had nothing at all to do with the disapproving Slayer kneeling next to him. If Buffy noticed the vanishing of the container, then she didn't say anything. Harry thought he saw a noticeable decrease in the tension of her shoulders, but he couldn't be sure.

After some struggling, Buffy was finally able to remove the demon's heart. She held it as far away from herself as she could with a large grimace on her face. Harry conjured up a large glass jar and handed it to her. She dropped it inside and sealed it shut. With a wave of his wand, he vanished the demon and every drop of blood laying on the grass or splashed across Buffy's shirt. She seemed to appreciate it.

"On-call Slayer laundry service reporting for duty," he quipped. She gave a small smile, but it seemed forced. The worry over her own mental health, as well as the safety of her classmates, seemed to have set her nerves on edge. "You ready?" he asked as he figured an Apparition to the library was in order. She nodded as she gripped the jar tightly.

"You want me to carry it?" Harry asked as she saw her death grip. "You might drop it. You aren't used to Apparition yet."

"Maybe I'll just call Giles and get a ride back," she said stubbornly. She was quite unwilling to trust her salvation to anyone but herself. Harry grinned, acknowledging the fact that he would have done the same if he was in that situation.

"Fine," he said with a sigh. He tapped his wand on the jar and it glowed bright blue for a second before returning to normal. "Now it's unbreakable."

She glanced at him and then back to the jar with a frown. She didn't seem to know whether or not to believe his claim. She tapped on the glass but it only made the same pinging noise as you'd find on any other glass object. Harry didn't know why she seemed so skeptical, making a jar unbreakable wasn't all that extraordinary compared to the other things he had proven to be capable of. That conclusion seemed to pass through Buffy's thoughts as well, for she nodded her acceptance and said that she was ready to go.

They popped into the library a moment later. Buffy, like before, stumbled; though this time it was far less noticeable. It seemed that Harry had worried for nothing because the jar remained safe in her firm grip.

Turning the corner, they found Giles pacing around the table, with a book open in his hands as he muttered to himself about alternative potential cures.

"Got the heart," Buffy said cheerfully as she pranced to the table. Harry frowned as he watched her. Her attitude had completely changed in the span of only a minute. Did she feel safer now that Giles was there, or was she simply putting on a brave face?

Giles looked up in hope. When he noticed the jar that Buffy was carrying, his expression quickly morphed into that of relief. "Buffy?" he asked in disbelief, "how did you . . ."

"I'm shielding her mind," Harry explained as he joined Buffy at the table. Harry could feel fatigue beginning to set in. The constant channeling of the protective shield had drained him over the last half an hour. Still, he was a long way away from being too tired to hold it.

Giles gave him a grateful nod before turning back to Buffy "Cut it up into small pieces," Giles ordered as he handed her a board to use. "quickly."

"What!? But I just filled my quota of disgusting slayer duties." she reminded as she held up the jar containing the heart, which still had blood covering it.

"We can't be sure it won't infect someone else," Giles explained. "Please be quick. It says quite clearly that the heart has to be fresh," he said before pointed to a line in the book as if to make his point.

Buffy grumbled to herself as she emptied the heart on the table and began to dice it into smaller pieces.

"Smaller," Giles advised as he watched her. "You need to drink them," He said plainly as he instructed her.

She stopped her work to stare at him in horror. Giles was too busy reading the next part of the recipe to notice. Eventually, she went back to work, though her grumbling had grown louder and the dicing of the heart began to get more violent.

Once Buffy finished preparing the heart, Giles collected a bit of each ingredient displayed on the table and started to place them in the mortar as he read from his book. He used the pestle to grind up all the dry ingredients into a fine dust. After that was done, he placed the dusted remains into a small flask and handed it to Buffy.

"Place the heart inside."

Buffy grabbed the small pieces of heart and carefully added them to the mixture before Giles took the flask back from her and left the room. Harry vanished all the remains off of the table and her hands. He didn't want any of the remaining pieces to infect anyone else.

When Giles returned, the antidote was ready. Inside the flask was a bright blue tonic that seemed to glow with luminescence. Harry could see small pieces of the heart floating around in the liquid and he was glad that he wouldn't be the one drinking it. Buffy must have noticed the pieces too, as her face paled at the thought of what she was about to do. Buffy took the flask from him with a grimace and stared at it.

"Best if you drink the whole thing," Giles suggested, earning himself a glare from the blonde Slayer. He pretended not to notice it but Harry could detect the humor in his eyes. It seemed as if the bulk of the man's worry had faded.

Buffy took a few breaths in preparation before she raised the cure to her lips and began to drink from it. In Buffy's rush to get it over with, the tonic went down quickly. She placed the empty glass on the table. Giles and Harry watched for any signs of it working, but nothing happened.

"Do you want to take off the necklace to test if—" Harry didn't get the chance to finish his question, as Buffy grunted in pain and collapsed to the floor. She soon began to convulse; her legs and arms smacking against the tiled floor. Shocked for a moment, Harry watched as Giles rushed to Buffy and tried to keep her from hurting herself. Harry canceled the shield that protected her before hitting her with a Stunner.

She continued to convulse, but Harry knew that she was now unconscious and wouldn't feel anything. After a few minutes, the convulsions ceased and Giles got back up from the floor while Harry countered the spell and woke her up. Buffy raised herself slowly off of the ground, wincing from the bruises of the fall.

"A little warning next time," Buffy groaned. "Sure you did it right?" she asked as she rubbed her sore thigh. It had taken most of the impact.

"How do you feel?" Giles asked as he peered at her.

"Huh? It was just a small fall . . ."

"I canceled the protection charm," Harry explained as she trailed off. He gestured to the now ordinary necklace. Her eyes opened briefly in surprise before she stuck her hands around her neck and removed the piece of jewelry. Buffy placed it on the table and walked away.

"they're gone," she muttered as her face lit up with a relieved smile.

Harry watched as Giles collapsed into a chair, his worry fading and leaving only exhaustion. Harry walked over to retrieve the necklace in order to repair it. With a wave of his wand, the runes vanished and it was as good as new. He handed the pristine necklace back to Buffy. She eyed it for a second before giving him a nod in appreciation as she tucked it into her pocket.

Harry noticed that the sun was beginning to trickle into the room. "It's almost morning, do you want me to stay to help you with the students?" he asked.

Buffy shook her head, "The principal here is a grouch. You wouldn't make it five minutes before being forced out."

Harry thought about reminding her about his invisibility ability but decided not to. It wasn't as if he was just going to volunteer information, and he wasn't sure whether or not she saw that he had been invisible during the capturing of Faith or not.

"Alright, but if it gets serious, let me know. I'm hardly going to let one grouchy man get in the way," Harry said, trusting that Buffy could take care of it on her own.

Giles had shown him a lot of trust when he told Harry where Buffy lived. Not only that, but he had sent Harry into her home while she had been competently defenseless. If that wasn't a show of trust, Harry didn't know what was. Would he have trusted any of them if the situations were reversed? He didn't know.

Harry looked around and noticed who wasn't here, "Where's Wesley? Shouldn't he be trying to cure his Slayer?"

Giles and Buffy exchanged a look before Giles answered, "We haven't seen or heard from him in days. We..."

"He got canned," Buffy interrupted with a pleased smile.

"We don't know that," Giles said with a worried frown, "he could be in danger."

"Oh please, Giles. We both know that he called up his boss the first chance he got and told them what happened," Buffy scoffed.

"No doubt trying to blame you, me and everyone else for it," Harry mused.

Giles remained thoughtful, "I wouldn't count him out just yet. He may have just been ordered to travel to The Councils headquarters to give a full report."

"Won't they just send someone else?" Harry asked, trying to understand how this Council worked.

Giles nodded, "No doubt someone with more experience. Someone harder for Buffy to ignore or work around."

Buffy folded her arms over her chest, "What can they do anyway? I'm done with him."

Giles didn't respond. Perhaps he knew just what The Council was capable of, but didn't want to worry her.

Seeing the topic die, Harry decided that it was time to leave, he took out his wand in order to Apparate when Buffy stopped him "Wait! I . . ." she paused awkwardly. "I'm sorry," she said finally. Harry just stared blankly, having no idea what she meant. "About the blood," she specified.

Harry finally understood. She must have noticed that he had been insulted at the assumption that he was only helping her in order to get his hands on the blood of the demon. "Don't be," Harry said with a shrug. "It was probably a bad idea anyway."

Giles was looking back and forth, clearly confused with the exchange, but he seemed to let it go. "Buffy, you may want to have Harry get you back home to see your mother. There's time before the other students arrive, and I imagine that she is quite worried," Giles advised.

Buffy agreed, and Harry took her back to her house. Buffy thanked him for the help before heading inside in order to see her mother. Harry headed back to the apartment and his couch, where he planned to sleep the next eight hours. He just hoped that Buffy was able to find whoever was plotting a mass murder at her school, but he wasn't too worried about it. If worse came to worse, he hoped that she would trust him enough to ask for help.

* * *

 _Author Notes - I won't be terribly surprised if a lot of readers are a little disappointed about the lackluster fight with the demon. I thought briefly about making it more difficult, but Buffy was able to kill one of them in a two on one fight while they could read her mind. I just felt like a one on one fight after they took away the demon's only advantage would just have to go a lot smoother for Buffy._

 _Until next time._


End file.
